Halo: Operation Fallout
by EmperorOfTheSunFirstAndTheLast
Summary: Six months after first contact with the Covenant on Harvest, Corporal Marcus Faust fights with the UNSC Marine Corps through the early days of one of the bloodiest conflicts of the Human-Covenant War. All of which culminates in Operation Fallout, a large scale assault on a large Covenant landing ground.
1. Chapter 1

**Halo: Operation Fallout**

 **Chapter 1**

The sun was setting on Harvest not that they could truly tell, the men huddled in their foxholes as the Plasma artillery from the Wraith tanks fired above them. Six months had passed since first contact with the Alien conglomerate known as the covenant was made, Hundreds of thousands of humans had died in the war with the technologically advanced alliance. It was now August and yet a winter had overtaken the lands of Harvest, its sun blocked out. The Aliens had used some form of weaponry to effectively "melt" the surface of Harvest to glass, with that dust had risen to the sky. As snow and ash fell to the ground the men in the foxholes tried to keep their spirits up as ever-increasing volleys of plasma landed around them, bubbling and sputtering upon contact with the ground before burning itself up rapidly and evaporating to nothingness. The dark skies mixed with the blue flashes of light of the Wraith's Cannons were beautiful in their own, deadly ways, but when the order came, the men of the 1st Battalion, 265th Marine Division charged forward towards the covenant battery, amongst them, Corporal Marcus Faust, a veteran of the civil war that had erupted across the Human colonies as secessionists had been fighting for decades, he was still new to the UNSC Marine Corps, having signed up only four years ago, but with multiple tours on multiple planets he was an experienced and respected soldier, but the Covenant were not like the rebels, they were organised, and they were advanced and of course, they were Alien. He feared war in his first year in the UNSC, but after he continued to gain experience and fought alongside the men and women he had grown to think of as family, his fears decreased until it disappeared altogether. But now, as he and his Battalion charged towards the enemy, he felt scared, plasma bolts hit all around him and his fellow soldiers, and the armour he and the Marines wore could not take many before the plating melted away, along with the skin and bone, if lucky the wound would be cauterised and the soldier evacuated for urgent medical aid, however, for most, it would result in an excruciatingly painful death as part of the body was burned away by any bolts that would hit the unfortunate soldier.

As the Corporal advanced, his trusty assault rifle firing in bursts to little effect to the larger of the Alien creatures, the UNSC had coined the term 'Elites', as they seemed to be the one in charge of all the Covenant ground forces, the smaller ones, that looked like apes with a giant shark fin and a gasmask were called 'Grunts' because they were the poor foot soldiers sent to soak up the bullets. Despite being the enemy, Marcus pitied the little Aliens, he must have seen millions, if not billions of them die in the short time he had been on the planet, but yet here they were, soaking up the ammo of the Marines in the assault, at the same time though he felt little remorse, they were more powerful then they looked, able to fight hand to hand if necessary and had the strength of the apes that they looked like, he had seen them throw a fully grown woman, in full combat armour, and with a pack of rockets on her back, into two men, before leaping over to them and snapping all three of their necks before any of them had the chance to retaliate, he killed it, but it was too late for the three Marines lying dead on the floor. He approached a destroyed building nearby the enemy vehicles and took cover to catch his breath which evaporated in the breeze as its smoke rose high, four other Marines reached the wall shortly after him, they all had the same objective, storm the covenant positions and force back the enemy, destroying their vehicles as they do, Alien roars came from the Elites nearby, igniting their energy swords and beckoning forth swarms of more grunts who charged forward with vicious yet squeaky battle cries, Marcus and the four marines sprinted around the wall, they reached a nearby shell hole and jumped in, one levelled a battle rifle and fired at least half a magazine into the turret gunner of the wraith ahead of them, finally the Elite dropped dead, it's lifeless body hanging over the turret it once manned, a second Marine then clambered out of the foxhole, sprinting towards the rear of the tank, tearing at a rear vent and placing a frag grenade inside, he ran back to the foxhole just as the grenade exploded. At first, nothing happened, but as the wraith prepared to fire again, it rapidly overheated, exploding in a flash of crimson and blue, the Elite driver clambered from the wreckage, it's shielding must have stopped its immediate death, however it did not stop the fire from covering its body and the explosion from tearing off half of its jaw and it's arm, the creature was in a terrible state, it quickly dropped to the floor dead, unable to cling to its life. The Corporal and the Marines with him then again advanced, engaging the Covenant forces as they did, the ruins of Harvest's cities provided the Covenant with equally perfect cover as the UNSC, and as they advanced, Marcus heard a horrifying scream, a Marine with him had been impaled by an Elite, her screams blood-curdling as the Crimson Armoured beast glowed blue with the light of its twin energy blades, as quickly as her screams had been let loose her head slumped and her body went limp, the Alien dropped her corpse to the floor and swung rapidly for another of the Marines, slashing down across the front of his armour, fortunately whilst the swing struck its mark, it was with the edge of the blades, piercing it but not mortally wounding the man who was knocked to the floor and began crawling back, firing off his Assault rifle as he withdrew whilst the Marcus and the third Marine too began to open fire, the Elite roared and shouted something in its guttural language as its shield broke, the beast turned invisible but the marines began to spray their rounds throughout the area, the soldier on the floor rose to his feet and the three men continued on, linking up with more Marines as they pushed the Covenant back from their positions. Another hour passed of heavy urban fighting before the orders came to cease, by that point at least half the Battalion had been wiped out, entirely dead, at least another third wounded, Marcus was lucky as the Marines dug in again, he was just as lucky this time, a building that was secure enough was to be used as a machine gun post, the Corporal and several other Marines decided to take advantage of solid shelter away from the cold and set up in there, taking it in turns to guard their positions. No covenant retaliation came that night though, a reprieve for the battered Marine forces, as the Snows continued to fall and the ash as yet unbroken above the ruined city, Pelican dropships deployed a division of Army troopers as reinforcement.

Before the war with the Aliens, the Marines and the Army often had inter service rivalry, not enough to harm combat operations but enough to cause banter between the forces, now however, no Marine wished to be a soldier of the UNSC Army, the Marines could be withdrawn, had significantly better equipment, and could be redeployed where needed, the Army had to hold their worlds, they stayed there until they all died, every one of them, the Marines learnt that when they first arrived on Harvest to find no UNSC presence on the planet at all except the corpses of the Army troopers who held the line despite all odds, and in the face of the orbital bombardment, were forced to stay where they were and burn, the UNSC did not deem them important enough, and now, him and the Marines were here to fight the Covenant, and when that is done they will leave the planet, and if the planet is to be bombarded again, they will be withdrawn, but the Army will be left behind, they will evacuate the remaining civilians and if needs be they will give up their own places. It was a cruel life. The new Army forces on Harvest were made up of large numbers of civilian volunteers from the planet itself, though multiple Divisions were brought in, fresh from their training on Reach, rumour had it that ODST's were to brought to Harvest soon too, to bolster the defences. As the Soldiers of the UNSC Army deployed they brought with them much needed entrenching equipment, alongside portable barriers and Machine Guns, even some tanks were deployed too. The bolstered Marines spirits were risen by the arrival of their new friends, how long any of them would survive, no one knew, but the forces there began to bolster their position, and within a matter of hours the UNSC forces had set up a fortress amongst the ruins, crackles of gun fire were heard all throughout the city, the whizzing of Missiles and artillery echoed across the skies, but at the Corporal's position, all remained quiet throughout the day, much to his relief.

Night fell once again, not that you could truly tell, the clouds looker blacker then they did gray, but apart from that, for the troops on the ground, it was near perpetually dark, Marcus and the remaining Marines of his battalion had heard that it wasn't like this all over the planet, some places still remained light in the day, the sun shining down on it, it sounded like Eden compared to the darkness of Utgard, the Corporal didn't know much about Norse Mythology, but he felt it fitting that it was the realm of giants given the large size of the Elites, the Grunts felt out of place but it made no difference to the Corporal. "I'm looking for 1st Battalion, anyone? 1st Battalion, 265th Marines?" A voice shouted from the distance, gradually getting closer the voice shouting the same question, no one was replying so Marcus got up and went outside the building he'd holed up in, "Over here!" he shouted in reply, "Sort of, I'm with the 1st Battalion 265th Marines!". The soldier ran over to him, leaning over and beginning to pant heavily 'Must have been running a long way' he thought to himself. "Sir..." the soldier started but had to force herself to catch her breath again. "Take your time bud, the covenant will take theirs" Marcus stated bluntly with a slight laugh. "Sir, we tried to establish radio contact with your battalion, I'm from 5th Battalion, we can't seem to find any others, the Division is to withdraw from Utgard and resupply for an offensive into the North Eastern fringes of the city, encircling the covenant forces, but every time we tried to contact you we couldn't establish secure links, where is your CO?" she asked, "That, is a brilliant question, I have four marines in here, there's at least one hundred others scattered around, give or take, if I knew where they were I'd point you there way, but I suppose since we get a chance to get out of this shithole for even ten minutes I'll help you rouse up the remains of the Marines here" he replied. He pointed her in the direction he thought some of the Marine forces would be and he went in the other, finding a dozen other members of his Battalion to follow him, realising he didn't actually set a rendezvous point with the soldier sent to find them, he then set about locating her, after a half hour of wandering around their position he finally found her with at least seventy other Marines, 'is this truly all that was left?' Marcus thought to himself, of eight hundred, there were seventy-three of them left, he was shocked and saddened, he'd thought of them all as his family and now he had lost the vast majority of them. The remnants of 1st Battalion followed the Marine sent to find them through the ruined streets, occasionally one of the Covenant fighters, the UNSC called them Banshees on account of the howling noise they made, would come to strafe them, firing bolts of Plasma at them, fortunately none were hit on the journey to 5th Battalions encampment, and as they arrived Pelicans and Warthogs were there to extract them all. "Where's your CO?" a gruff Lieutenant Colonel shouted as the Marines arrived at the camp. "Dead sir, poor bastard got impaled by an Elite, thankfully my lucky friend here got the bastard in the head with his sniper as revenge. We don't seem to have an Officer" a young soldier replied, Marcus recognised the voice anywhere, it was Private Abraham Walker, the newest member of the Battalion before arriving here at Harvest, he made it through a tour against the Insurrectionists and then the Covenant came and he ended up here, kid was as lucky as ever, he survived a close encounter with a wraith "shell" with only minor burns to the face, he'd managed to dive into a crater just as a bit of plasma hit his helmet and face mask, it burnt through it, burning a part of his face, but thankfully the amount of material in front of it meant it burnt itself out before it did any serious damage.

"Alright, where's the NCO's?" the Lieutenant Colonel asked again, silence filled the air, "fuck me, right, Corporals?", Faust and three others stepped forward, "Jesus Christ, okay. You!" The Colonel pointed at the Marine next to Faust, she saluted and the Colonel ordered her to step forward, "congratulations Sergeant, it's highly irregular, but these are irregular times, you're in charge of what is left of first battalion, and you!" he pointed at Faust, "You're her second in command, now mount up, we are leaving!" he ordered, the Marine, the new Sergeant turned to her battered forces, and repeated the orders to mount up, despite there being ample space in the pelicans, most Marines piled into the 'Hogs, that way they had the chance to take cover if the Covies attacked them. Marcus however, decided to take a Pelican, he got into it, there were only four others in the troop compartment, despite the fact it could up to twenty people, they were all trying to sleep, so he did the same. The flight lasted perhaps forty minutes, he wasn't able to get much rest but when the transport landed and its bay door opened he saw a beautiful sight, thousands of Marines, hundreds of tanks and dozens of artillery pieces all preparing for their assault on Utgard, if the Covenant could withstand an assault this large and well-equipped Marcus didn't know what could stop them. "Faust, get your arse over here" his new Sergeant ordered, when she dismounted her Warthog, Marcus placed his rifle over his back and made his way towards her, Sergeant Alice McArthur, had fought with him since boot camp on Reach, four years they'd made their way through the Insurrection, he trusted her with his life just like any of the Marines in his Battalion, but he worried now, for her, and for them, knowing that hundreds of Marines died in Utgard over the course of the past couple of weeks they had been deployed here, they were all that he had left, and it terrified him. "Sergeant" He said, and saluted her mockingly, she laughed at him, and returned the salute mockingly. "So, I have no idea what I'm doing, and as second in command, you are going to advise me, so, Faust, what do we do?" she asked him, "Eat, I'd suggest we eat, we have no idea when we are deploying, and most of us haven't eaten since before the assault yesterday, what good are Hungry marines if we go into battle thing of our stomachs" he replied, she laughed at him, "you are a greedy bastard Marcus, always thinking of your stomach" and with that she turned to the rest of the Marines, who were forming up in front of the two, "Get some chow Marines, we don't know when we're moving out, so eat up, don't want any of you thinking of you stomachs instead of butchering Aliens" she shouted, the Marines replied with the customary "Yes Sir" and scattered, heading for the mess quarters that had been set up. Marcus and Alice made their way there too, to see so many Marines made the Corporal feel relieved, up until the Army units made their way into the city, they'd been relatively alone since the start of their campaign, but now, they had people to fall back on and bolster their forces, it was truly a glorious sight.

Marcus and the men and women of his Division approached the Mess Hall, the smell of bacon, eggs, coffee, tea, everything he'd been missing since being on deployment made his stomach growl, he didn't realise how much he had been away from such normalities for so long, he'd been living on Marine Rations for almost a year, his Division was on deployment before being sent to Harvest, and so at the sight of all this food his spirits were almost immediately raised, everyone gathered up platefuls of whatever they could, and all but inhaled it. "Listen up Marines!" A gruff looking man with a moustache and a cigar came in. "We're about to storm Utgard... Again... These Alien bastards have butchered hundreds of thousands of people and today we're going to show them why they chose the wrong species to go to war with, we have out there the fist of the almighty, and we're going to ram it so far up their extra-terrestrial asses, that they'll turn tail and run straight back to wherever they came from, am I right Marines?" The man shouted, "Hoo-Rah!" the Marines shouted, the man gave a nod and Faust swore he could see a smirk form on his face, he took a drag on his cigar, turned and left the mess facility, the Marines went about their business now, some heading to the Armory some to the deployment area, waiting for the moment they are sent back into the city. The Corporal wandered out to the Armoury, grabbing some magazines for his trusty Assault Rifle and a couple more grenades. He thought about the troops that were left behind to occupy the Marines former positions in the city, it had only been about an hour and a half since they had been redeployed but he felt sorry for them, they could have been hit hard, the Covenant were always swift to react to any change in circumstances, and he felt himself getting uneasy at the thought of returning, but before he could begin to worry any further, he heard someone shouting in the distance, "1st, 5th battalion of the 265th, mount up in the Pelicans, we have the honour of being the tip of the fucking spear!", it sounded like it McArthur, she walked into the troop compartment in one of the nearby troop transports, he ran over too it and got in, sitting himself next to her, "So, what are we going to face Sarge?" he asked her, the door began to close behind them, the full compartment full of Marines, some of them started rummaging around their pack, placing a music device into one of the speakers and blasting flip music into the troop bay, the men and women onboard immediately felt their spirits raise and many cheered when they started playing it, Faust smiled as Alice replied to his question, "Well, we're going to deploy right into the middle of a Covvie encampment, we believe there are anywhere from four thousand to six thousand of the little bastards there, apparently the Office of Naval Intelligence themselves have gotten us this intel, that their defences are formed of "Shade" turrets and Wraiths, these "Shade" turrets seem to be either a different variant or a different type of turret itself than the ones we encountered in the past, faster fire rate, potential for AA capabilities so, clearly a wise idea to have us in this fucking thing, but regardless, stay sharp, and once on the ground, stick close to me, can't be having my second going and dying on me can I?" she laughed as she finished, he nodded, and placed his helmet on, dragging his mask up over the remainder of his face.

As the Pelicans approached their targets the ships were bracketed by bolts of Plasma, the turbulence shook them greatly, Marcus couldn't see outside, but he knew that there must have been casualties already, several Pelicans must have been shot down, it saddened him, but he steeled himself for the attack. "Marines" Alice began to speak through Comms, "Get up, and get ready, we land in ninety seconds!", the whole bay in near perfect unison prepared their Weapons and stood up, preparing themselves to be deployed, the compartment bay door opened up as the Pelican began to descend, the chaos outside had a strange beauty to it, burning Pelicans fell from the sky, bolts of blue and green plasma erupted and flew through the air and along the ground as the Covenant forces unleashed their fury on the Human assault, "30 seconds" the Seargent said over the radio, Marcus' heart was racing and his mouth ran dry, he could feel his legs trembling but had to try force himself to ignore his fear. "Go! Now! Everybody out, push forward and take out their artillery" The Seargent screamed through the Comms as the noise of the battlefield engulfed them. Faust sprinted out of the Pelican and ran to a nearby wall taking cover, he poked his head around the corner and spotted a group of Grunts firing off their pistols, they were pinning down another group of Marines just ahead of them, cutting down any more of their platoon if they tried to leave the Pelican, a highly dangerous position, he had no choice but to step out from his cover to get a shot, he leant back a minute, breathed in heavily, he turned the corner and opened fire on the little creatures, he cut down three of them, the rest fled, the Marines thanked him over the radio and advanced, Marcus turned to see several of the Marines from his Pelican cut down nearby, the transport itself hadn't been able to withdraw and was burning in the ruins of a nearby house. "Sarge, where the fuck are you?" Faust asked over the Radio, "Don't get mouthy with me boy" she began jokingly, the crackles of plasma bolts hitting nearby her could be heard over the radio with her, "I think I'm to your South, do you see the Marines crouched down by a stone fence?", Marcus scanned his surroundings, he saw dead and dying soldiers all around him, a couple of seconds later he saw them, "By the destroyed Scorpion?" Faust replied, "Yeah that's the one, I'm over here, we're pinned, this was a shit plan of attack, get over here" Marcus broke from his cover and sprinted towards his friend's position, three large balls of blue plasma began to fly up over him, slamming into a nearby skyscraper, probably an old office building, it began to collapse, no longer able to support its own weight as the last of its structural integrity was taken out by the stray artillery rounds of the Aliens, the dust began to fill the battlefield, as Marcus just made his way to his Seargent. "We'll use this to our advantage, we don't have long, we need to charge forward now, take out the covvies up front, I think a wraith position is around the corner from them, if we move now, we may be able to get there before they reposition", with that she leapt the wall with the other Marines of the platoon, Marcus followed along, the green bolts energy the only true illumination until the dust would begin to settle, the occasional muzzle flash of the human weapons in reply, he couldn't tell what was truly going on around him, if anyone had been hit or not, the battlefield was excruciatingly loud and if he didn't have a radio he wouldn't know what anyone was saying, but from the sound of things, the assault was not going well. "There, right there, to your right, right!" A voice screamed over the radio, "What was that? What the fu-" the communications cut off, Marcus had to ignore it right now, he saw a glowing sort of port in front of him, perhaps a hundred metres away, he ran forward, smashing it open with the butt of his rifle, he grabbed a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, placed it in the broken exhaust and ran as fast as he could away, as the dust began to settle he looked back just as a blueish-purple flame rose into the sky, he had destroyed the wraith, but he didn't see any of the other Marines. 'How did I get split from them so quickly?' he thought to himself, at that very moment, a giant collection of armoured worms flung the destroyed wraith out of its way, sending it crashing through the wall of an abandoned shop, behind it lay the bodies, or what was left of the bodies, of at least six marines, arms, legs, in one poor soldiers case, their entire upper body including head, melted, vaporised by Plasma, at first Marcus thought it was his fault, they were close to the Wraith when it exploded, but he didn't have time to think, he raised his Assault Rifle and opened fire, his rounds did nothing, bouncing off the giant blue shield the creatures pushed in front of it, he pulled another grenade off his belt, pulled the pin and tried to roll the Grenade close to the beast, he then proceeded to back off, firing his rifle until all the remaining rounds of his thirty-two round magazine had been spent, forcing him to reload. The grenade exploded and apart from a loud roar the creature seemed completely unfazed by the explosive device, puddles of orange had splattered off along the floor and walls and strange worms lay limp on the ground but apart from that the beast marched onwards, it raised its arm and a green glow began to build up throughout it, Marcus barely had time to get out the way, though it didn't matter, the beast followed him, trailing a beam of plasma towards him, thankfully though, it seemed to last only a matter of seconds before seemingly overheating, "Uh, I need support on my position, right god-damn-now" Marcus shouted through his radio, he once again opened fire upon any exposed piece of the beast, and when he finally thought he was weakening the beast, he soon found himself flying into a nearby car, slamming into it, his rifle flung far from him, he saw it in a pool of blood, a Marine lay there, torn apart by something, possibly the creature, when he finally looked towards the strange worm beast, he thought at first he was seeing double, but after shaking his head he realised he was, but not because he was concussed, but there really were two of them, he drew his pistol, and fired helplessly at both of them doing little more than infuriating them, he tried to stand but a piece of metal had somehow managed to find its way into the lower part of his leg, not severe, he pulled it out as he fired at the beasts, screaming in pain he finally managed to drag himself to his feet, the cumbersome Aliens now dangerously close to him, "get out the way!" a woman shouted down the comms, he spotted a couple of Marines with rocket launchers just down the street from him, the adrenaline beginning to take over, Marcus ran as fast as he could, he leapt through a broken window, taking cover as the two soldiers fired at the alien creatures, when the dust and shrapnel settled, the only things left where the two beasts were, were large groups of worms, limp and lifeless, surrounded by a very large pool of orange blood. "Thanks" Marcus began down the comms, "I definitely owe you one", and he slumped down by the window, catching his breath, pouring biofoam into his leg wound, and biting back the pain.

After the pain subsided, a good five minutes longer than he could truly spare, he got back to his feet, there was a small stinging sensation, but it was better than leaving the wound open and untreated. He hopped back out the window into the street, glancing over at the orange puddles and dead worms on the floor, wondering what the hell they were and how they even formed that giant creature, especially as on their own they looked surprisingly weak, brittle even as if they could be crushed in between someone's fingers. He headed in the direction of the gunfire, he had to regroup with someone, being on his own now was dangerous and he was sure Jackals would soon be scouring the rooftops and picking off stragglers, the creatures didn't exactly look like the creatures that roamed the plains of Africa back on Earth, they seemed more birdlike, with strange reptilian teeth. They were fast, tenaciously so, and surprisingly they were excellent shots, though you wouldn't think so, given how weak they actually were, they didn't have bulky muscles like the Grunts and Elites they sacrificed that for their agility. Whatever their physiology, Marcus just hoped they wouldn't make their appearance anytime soon, or else he wouldn't stand a chance. As he walked the street, rifle raised slightly he kept scanning the rooftops and the windows of the nearby buildings, stumbling every so often across the bodies of Marines or dead aliens. The gunfire however, drew closer as he walked on, a large blue light illuminated the sky, he once again found himself jumping through the window of a building as a large ball of plasma struck a few meters behind where he had been, as he popped his head above the ruined structures, he saw the impact crater and the giant scorch mark as plasma began to bubble away, again hopping the ledge he ran forward, turning the street corner and following the sound of gunfire as it echoed throughout the ruined city, as he was half way down the lengthy road a destroyed building gave way to the views of the battlefield, a wide local park, the grassy field long since turned into a moonscape with the trees splintered and felled Marines huddled in the craters firing at the Elites and Grunts who had fortified the buildings in the surrounding area, some Jackals were stood firing off from the roofs, however they were ineffective at all but pinning down the UNSC forces. Marcus ran forward as quick as he could and hopped down into the nearest crater, one of the Marines gave him a nod of acknowledgement as he crawled up next to them poking his head up slightly to take a better view of the surroundings. In the darkness of the sky, the flashes from the muzzles of UNSC ballistic weapons and the green and blue hues of Plasma, alongside the strange pinkish glows of the 'needles' fired from the rifles of the Jackal sniping down upon them. "Has anyone seen Sargeant McArthur?" he asked one of the nearby Marines, having to shout over the sounds of the firefight, "Sargeant McArthur? Of the 265th? She was last seen East of here, I think you might be lost pal" she replied, firing a couple of bursts from her Battle Rifle, a good shot too, right through the gap in the shield of a sniper, then quickly into its head, it fell from the roof, Marcus didn't see where it landed though, but presumably it was very much dead. "Do you know their exact position?" he asked her, hoping he could link up with own platoon, "Not a clue, our Lieutenant is up there in that foxhole, if you can make it too him he might have comms that can reach them I'll lay down some covering fire, but once they spot me, you're on your own" the Marine replied, Marcus nodded, took a deep breath, "Alright, go" he shouted, the Marine opened fire with her Rifle and he sprinted up and out of the crater, running in the direction of the officers position, the covering fire stopped and he felt like he was running a marathon, as bolts of plasma hit all around him, he felt something warm running down his leg, in the exertion the biofoam must have begun to fail him, he slid into the crater, which had the benefit of some extra protection as it was close a damaged short wall, presumably there to mark the boundaries of the park. "Sir, i'm Corporal Marcus Faust, of 1st Battalion, 265th Marines, I've lost long range communications, I was hoping you would have a way of getting in touch with my CO, I need to regroup with them and help them with their objectives". The Lieutenant looked at him, his helmet was off, though he had enough cover that he didn't really need it, a Marine had dismounted a turret and just dug it into the ground, occasionally firing off rounds into nearby enemy positions, how effective it was Faust didn't know, but if it meant another dead Alien, then he didn't care.

"My radio is busted, but there's a radio broadcasting station right in front of us, I've been trying to take it for the past half hour since arriving, we need it to try link up with Army forces already in the city alongside our fellow Marines, there's a group in that old restaurant to our left, link up with them and join the assault, when you find a working radio, get yourself in contact with your CO, then get yourself going" the Lieutenant said, Marcus nodded, breaking the cover of the crater and entering the restaurant where a group of twenty Marines were gathered with the same gruff looking Sargeant who had given them the 'motivational' speech in the mess tent. "Marine, are you here you to join the assault?" the Sargeant asked, "yes sir, I have to get in there" alright, we're going around the back way and kicking them up their asses, there shouldn't be any resistance out there, so once at the broadcasting station, we go in, cut them down, and secure the equipment we need, we HAVE to hold that building until the Marines outside can secure the park and the buildings around it. So, let's move out" he said, opening the fire escape door and entering on to the street, Marcus and the other Marines followed his lead, once out into the open they split up out into two columns on either side of the road, their rifles raised despite their leader's reassurance of the lack of the enemies around them. It was a short walk and around the corner they engaged a couple of Grunts who seemed to be on their way to reinforce their comrades at the front. "Stack up Marines" the Sargeant shouted, and the men gathered around the doorway, one of the soldiers placed a charge onto the door, the gruff looking NCO nodded, and the Marine blew the charge, two Marines entered, and gunfire was heard, as Faust arrived at his turn to enter, he immediately found himself under fire, he had to leap to the side and join a couple of soldiers by the desks they'd flipped for cover, the Grunts as always were easy to dispatch, but the Elites stood, stoically firing their plasma weapons towards to the Marines, who fired desperately in the small breaks they got as the enemy were forced to cool their weapons, their bullets doing little more than making the shields flicker, Marcus chucked a grenade over towards one of the enemy, one of them must have been close to having its shield broken as it was immediately dropped to the ground, dead, blue-ish blood leaking from its shattered body, the other Elite roared in anger, it's shield broken, it charged forward, but the combined fire of the Marines quickly brought it down, "move up, but be careful" the NCO said over their headsets. The group advanced, cautiously scanning every gap in the room for hidden enemies, especially any Elites that had decided to cloak themselves, slight shimmering in the lights of their torches, steamed breath in the cold air, anything, but as they moved further into the building, it was clear to the Marines that the floor they were on was clear, "Alright, Jackson, Miller, Franco, downstairs, clear the basement, Freud, Monk, Abrams, Chesterfield, you four stay here, if they call for help, go down and help them, but otherwise, keep this floor secure, the rest of you, on me, we need to clear the next two floors of the building". The Marines fell into their positions and Faust followed the rest of the soldiers to the first floor, they split up again as Faust and six of the Marines continued up to the second floor and the Sergeant took the other 6 with him to clear the first. The building seemed clear and the cackle of the Marines guns outside could be heard through the destroyed roof and a partially demolished floor. The marines spread out and began to check around the desks, making sure no Grunts or Jackals were hiding and waiting in ambush, "Cle-" a Marine was about to say before her voice was cut off, impaled by a cloaked Elite, the remaining Marines fired on the alien but it deactivated its energy sword, once again leaving them in the torchlight, "Shit" Marcus murmured, "Rally up on me Marines, form a line against the wall, when it appears again, open fire and don't stop" he finished, they cautiously made their way to his position, he was leaning back against a wall, that way no one could ambush him from behind, "Sargeant, we have an Elite on the loose, cloaked, we have a man down, keep your head on a swivel" Marcus said through the comms. "Copy that, we'll make our way to you, first floor is clear" the gruff man said in reply, Marcus tapped the comms twice in acknowledgement and the last of the Marines with him formed up in their line. There was near total silence. The only noises were the breathes of the Marines and the firefight from the park below which must have been coming to an end as the gunfire was beginning to die down. Marcus didn't have long to think about anything as suddenly a bump was heard, and in the torchlight a shimmer could be seen, the Marines immediately opened fire and whilst the Alien's shield didn't break, its cloaking device must have been damaged as the creature appeared, crimson armour gleaming in the light. The Sargeant arrived with his squad and they too joined the fray. The Alien roared, igniting its two energy swords it leapt forward with great speed and lunged for one of the Marines in the squad of reinforcements, the soldier dropped to the floor, his armour incapable of stopping the superheated plasma from doing any fatal damage, two more Marines followed in his stead, decapitated by the Alien, the Marines continued to pour fire onto the creature and finally the shield glimmered and broke, they fired at any exposed piece of the Elite's flesh and blue blood began spraying everywhere as dozens of bullets hit their mark and pierced its skin, within seconds it had dropped dead, at the cost of four of the Marines. Faust sighed with relief, looking at the floor around him it was covered in casings and abandoned magazines, he was short on ammo, he had only three magazines left in his pouches and he glanced at the counter on his Assault Rifle, sixteen rounds left. The Sargeant set about collecting the tags of the dead Marines, one of the soldiers who had been next to Faust approached the destroyed wall section and popped a flare, dropping it to the ground, the blue smoke began to rise high into the air and soon several other plumes of blue smoke rose around the park area. Marcus walked over to a window and looked down upon the moonscape, dozens of Marines lay dead, several more were being carried into the restaurant that they had left from earlier, medics were heading over to them, but with Plasma burns the chances of survival were pretty slim, not because they were any different to any other burn, but because even though they were alive, the chances were, a direct hit in the chest area would cause breathing problems, and with extraction unlikely anytime soon, a lot of them would die. "Corporal" a voice called from behind, "we've found your Sargeant, she's over to the East at these co-ordinates" he said passing him a map, Marcus pulled his own map out of one of the pouches on his chest armour, he copied down the co-ordinates and handed back the Marines map, then set back to examining his own, he memorized the shortest route and set about trying to scrounge some more ammo. He was grateful that someone else had gone through the grim job of taking ammo from the dead, and so he approached the Marine handing out the munitions, being giving three extra magazines. If he got into a fight with an Elite he'd be screwed, but he couldn't be choosy about it. He went to see if he was needed elsewhere and when he was informed he wasn't he placed more biofoam into his leg, which had been bleeding the whole time, he took a seat and waited a couple of minutes for the pain to subside again, a medic came and checked him over, but due to the situation Marcus denied the offer of stitching, the biofoam would do until he could get proper medical attention, other people would need the medics attention more than him. When he felt his leg was good to go he set off East to rally with his own platoon.

Marcus scanned the rooftops, looking at the sixteen that glowed on his Rifle's ammo counter, he wanted to reload, a full magazine was better than a half full one, but the lack of spares made the need to conserve a priority, gun fire was once again echoing across the city. The streets of Utgard were long and wide, a common theme in colony worlds, to ensure the heavy lifting vehicles can get around for rapid construction, but now the war was here, it provided a major obstacle, there was limited cover except the odd abandoned car or destroyed military vehicles. Marcus approached a crossroads and felt uneasy, he placed himself on the corner of a building nearby and poked his head around, it was clear, and so he advanced, but he heard a loud rumbling coming from behind him, it was getting closer but he had nowhere to hide, he crouched down and raised his rifle, from round one of the corners a Warthog came speeding round, seeing the vehicle he quickly rolled to the side as it came skidding to a halt just a few meters away from him, "Hey Marine, need a lift?" one of the troopers shouted, it was an Army soldier, Marcus grinned and got up off the floor, he jogged over and hopped into the passenger seat. The ride was uncomfortable, but the Warthog wasn't designed for comfort, it was designed for speed and rapid transportation/assault depending on the variant, Marcus, thankfully, had been picked up by an M12 with a Mounted Machine Gun, and for that he felt relieved, he had speed and firepower on his side, and the troopers were heading to link up with his Division, he kept his eyes on the rooftops and the ruins though, but he allowed himself to sit back a little. Within ten minutes they had arrived at the positions of 1st Battalion, apparently the 5th were further down the line, ahead of them lay six destroyed wraith tanks. Marcus almost felt disappointed that he had missed out on the battle, but he had had his own fight and he wasn't feeling too eager to jump back into combat yet. "There you are, and in your very own Limousine of all things!" one of the Marines shouted to Marcus, it was Jacob Little, ironically he was actually six feet tall, but the Marines liked to call him 'titch' anyway, both as a mockery and as banter, "well what can I say?" Marcus shouted back, "I like to arrive in style!" he finished as he patted the side of the 'hog. Walking over to Titch's position, "how bad was it?" Marcus asked, "bad, after those big worm things came for us, we got trapped behind a load of rubble, we wanted to come back for you but we couldn't, so we carried on to the objective, as soon as we got here there were shade turrets on the rooftops, they gunned down six of us, the wraiths killed fourteen more with their cannons and the gunners killed seven, wounded fifteen, of those wounded three have since died. Alice is trying to get us reorganised to hold the ground we have, hence the Army troopers you'll see huddled around, and the reasoning behind why you got your own lift. She's got some of the higher ups to divert them to us, and thankfully they'll be coming with Cobra's, which will help us pound Covvie positions as well as provide us with some Anti-Fort capabilities, which we sorely needed earlier, what about you? Are the other Divisions holding up?" Titch replied, worry in his voice, and reasonably so, his brother was somewhere in the city and according to Titch, it was his first engagement. "I haven't seen your brother mate, if that's what you're asking, but I was with another division to the West, we stormed a Radio Broadcasting Station, it was alright until the final floor, a cloaked Elite killed four of the Marines before we got the bastard, two were decapitated, not a pretty sight, when the battle died down and the building was secure I looked down from the second floor, there must have been at least twenty to thirty dead, they were moving the wounded to a restaurant for shelter and aid, I don't know how many had already been moved inside but at least eighteen were still laying outside on stretchers. Fucking bloodbath, and when you look at the map, we barely have the outskirts" Marcus said disapprovingly. "You can say that again" Titch said, at that moment a convoy of Army forces rolled up, three Cobras, six Scorpion tanks and six transport Warthogs arrived, including the Army soldiers that were sat on the tanks, or swarming them by the looks of things, there were at least a hundred troopers coming to reinforce the Marines. Marcus and Titch looked over as Alice arrived to greet the CO of the Army Battalion here to join them. She had her mask over her face but her helmet hung across her chest, the straps wrapped around a bandoleer, but Marcus could just about see that she was worried, he wasn't going to bother her yet though, but whatever she knew, it must have been bad, especially if she requested such powerful equipment to reinforce their positions and that concerned Marcus.

As the minutes ticked by, Marcus found a damaged wall and sat himself down, he pulled his canteen from a pouch on his chest and took small sips of water, he wasn't much of a drinker but he wished he had some whiskey or bourbon to steady his nerves. As he glanced around the UNSC position he saw some of the artillery crews setting up their Cobra's, one had already begun firing and the loud thump of the M98 105mm railgun echoed across the stillness of the positions, every few seconds a new thump would signal the artillery's presence in the area, and as the other two Cobra's joined the thunderous chorus, Marcus almost felt sorry for the covvies who would be the target of the cannons giant shells. Titch and Alice made their way to the wall where he was sitting, so screwing the lid back on to his canteen and placing it into his pouch he grabbed his Assault Rifle and holstered it over his back, the mag lock keeping it safely in place against the back of his armour. "So what's the situation Sarge?" he asked as Alice approached him, "For the most part, we've secured the objectives we were sent to secure, the 112th had their arses handed to them, poor bastards were absolutely smashed by Wraiths, plasma turrets and Banshees as they approached their LZ, those who made it tried to take out the Wraiths like they were ordered but they took heavier casualties on the way to their objectives and were forced to fall back, we don't even know if they still exist at this point, contact was lost with them. We took out a good proportion of the artillery positions they set up, but unfortunately, they moved the rest of the Wraiths to the North East of the city, thankfully, out of range of us, but that means we're again stuck in a stalemate, we'll be advancing with the troopers in the morning, I'd say get some rest, but I reckon the Cobra's are going to keep us all awake" she replied, rubbing her eyes and sighing, clearly the pressure of command was taking its toll, she was in charge of what was left of an entire Division, about three hundred men and women, and to make matters worse, they're scattered between other Divisions in the city, attempting to regroup them and bring them back into the fold, not to mention the matter of the dead, she had to keep a record of them, and she knew she was going to be responsible for ensuring their families know... If they were even alive themselves.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter 2**_

The morning came, though once again no one could tell, the Sun must have risen over the horizon by now, but the smoke and the "nuclear" winter caused by the Covenant's glassing of Harvest had blocked out the sun long ago. A large glow could be seen in the distance however, it came falling from the sky, flames all around it, the wreckage of a ship, human? Maybe, or Covenant. It was too far and to brightly encased in flames to tell, but whatever it was, it was of no concern to Marcus today, the troopers were checking their equipment, and each other's, in the night a squad of ODST's had arrived, dropped in the wrong positions, in the midst of an ambush in orbit, they were going to join the Marines and Army in the continued reclamation of Utgard. Marcus approached a tent that had been set up the previous evening, a couple of radio's were set up on a table, and some intelligence officers were sat co-ordinating something, he wasn't really paying attention to whatever they were saying, Alice stood, talking to an Army Colonel, the older man had a 5 o'clock shadow, a scar on his cheek, a feature most of the more veteran soldiers had, it was, after all, a dangerous career, his eyes were a very piercing green however, and he seemed fairly jolly despite the chaos and destruction around him, a refreshing change of pace amongst the officer class who were usually very straight faced and direct, near perpetually acting as if they were on the were parade ground, often to the collapse of the morale of the soldiers under their command as they were forced into traditional and predictable attack patterns, leading to their slaughter at the hand of the Alien juggernauts. "Sargeant, Colonel" Marcus said, acknowledging them respectfully. "Corporal, the Sargeant here spoke highly of your exploits yesterday, you fought yourself two hunters?" the Colonel asked, "Well, that's half true sir, I was ambushed, to be honest I ended up having to hide in a building as a heavy weapons team blew them up, but if that is what they are called then yes, I definitely did encounter and engage them" Marcus replied, humble in his response. "Well, either way, brave choice, most men just accept their fates when they see them, but anyway, onto the point at hand, Sargeant" the Colonel finished. "Marcus, as second in command of the 5th Battalion, I'm giving you command of them, I'll take 1st with me, we're going to advance along these three roads, the Army will be in the middle, as we take the two flanking roads, at the end as you can see, is yet another park, we've been pounding that position all night with the Cobra's each of us will be followed by two tanks, use them sparingly, the crews are going to be a big target, if anyone needs any ammo, then head over to the quartermaster in the old coffee shop, logistics did a good job of scrounging together a stockpile. Any questions?" Alice said with the authority of a General. "Other than what is there in the park?" Faust replied. The Colonel answered this time. "We believe, there is a large concentration of Covenant there, it makes sense, the Parks of the city are set up as very defensible positions, perfect kill zones, but, they are close to important buildings, as you know from yesterday, radio stations, other things amongst them, but here we're not sure why they have stayed, there doesn't seem to be anywhere of significance, they for the most part, are holding their positions, in an untenable location, without any support from the Covenant in the North of the city. We'll wipe them out, see what is there, but if you see any new species of Alien, that look like this" the colonel slid a photograph across the map table, Marcus glared at the strange creature, it was like a giant gas ball, it had several strange limbs and its head looked almost like its arms, it had six eyes and a smallish looking mouth, almost non-existent, it was a cross between cute and disgusting, but it seemed harmless, the look of the creatures eyes was one of curiosity, not anger like the other creatures. The colonel continued his speech, "if one of them is around, we might have an answer to what the Covenant are doing, they aren't a violent species as far as we can tell, they seem frightened, perhaps an enslaved species rather than a voluntary member. Advise your people to hold fire if they see one, selective firing is required, we don't want it dead, we just want to talk to it, find out what the Covenant are doing, what they want. The Assault begins at 06:30, gather what you need, you have fifteen minutes" the Colonel finished, Marcus nodded, gave a salute and made way for the old coffee shop, he shouted for the members of 5th Battalion and called over comms, within a couple of minutes about a hundred men and women stood around him. "In..." Marcus glanced at his watch, "twelve minutes, we're going on the offensive, Sargeant McArthur is in command of the remains of 1st Battalion, you lot, are with me, gather ammo if you need it from in here, refill your canteens if you need too... And Marines..." Marcus grinned, "Take a shit now. I don't want to smell you before I see you on the battlefield". A couple of the Marines laughed at that and Marcus went to finish, "When you're ready, rally on me, we leave at 06:30 so get yourself prepped". The Marines fell out, and Marcus walked into the old coffee shop, some of the Logistical troops were pottering about, cleaning weapons, fixing them. He approached a quartermaster, a tired looking woman, mid 30's perhaps, signing forms for whatever reason, even in the frontlines it seemed bureaucracy was ever present. "Ma'am, I'm here for 7.62x51mm FMJ rounds for the MA5C" Marcus asked, the Quartermaster dropped her pen for a moment, sighed, stood from her chair and approached a box of magazines. Marcus already had at least four on him, and a half magazine in his assault rifle already, the Quartermaster passed him six more magazines, "thank you" Marcus said, the Quartermaster merely gave a short smile and a nod, he didn't expect much, filling out forms all day isn't really what any soldier wants to do, the Logistics Corps were a valuable part of the UNSC, but when they're deployed to the front, the thought of not being able to put their training to use gets to them. He approached the third Road, the way they were going to approach the park. Marcus saw the Army tank crews sitting on their scorpion, some were smoking a cigarette, other sipping from their canteen, they were laughing and Joking, and Marcus realised it was on him to ensure they remained alive to laugh and joke in the future. With a minute to spare the remainder of 5th Battalion were with Marcus, the tank crews we inside their own personal fortresses. "Alright, let's move out" the Colonel's voice said over their comms, Marcus gave the signal and the columns of men and women slowly advanced, scanning buildings and rooftops for any Jackals or hidden covenant positions. As they advanced Marcus grew increasingly nervous, it was quiet, far too quiet, even the distant cackling of the machine guns and thumping of the Artillery could no longer be heard. Perhaps a kilometre from the start of their advance, Marcus raised his fist, he crouched down, something was shimmering in the windows, "I think we might have a contact Marines, spread out, you lot in the tanks, back up a bit, but make sure the lead tank can rotate its turret to hit the building if needs be, let's not risk lives if we can just drop the building on the bastards". Marcus pulled a grenade off his belt, he pulled the pin and counted to three, then chucked it in through the doorway, the grenade hit the wall at the far end of the building and rolled for another second, the shrapnel flew through the air, it must have damaged the cloaks of the Elites, because standing there, four of the creatures roared in anger, "Lead tank, fire on the building right now!" Marcus shouted down the radio, the Marines fired on the Aliens who had either ignited their energy swords or began returning fire with their plasma rifles. The tank turret rotated as the Marines began to disengage to a safe distance, the machine fired and large empty casing was ejected from the rear as a 90mm shell fired into the building, a creaking could be heard, and then the first floor collapsed, dropping onto the Elites, regardless of the fact they probably died in the explosion, the knowledge they were now buried under around a tonne of brick and wood relieved him. They carried on the advance, "what happened Marine?" a voice over the comms asked, "Some cloaked Elites Sarge, we dropped a building on them to be safe" he replied, "copy that" Alice replied over the headset. As they gradually got closer to the Park, Marcus' stomach began to tighten, he was the lead man in the group of Marines and an easy target until they could approach a low fence about a hundred meters in. Suddenly a bright flash was seen as a part of wall from a building in the right of the Park collapsed to the floor, exposing the rooms within, and soon the bright green and blue plumes of plasma burst from the windows and the exposed room, dropping about six Marines as they turned in from Route One, Marcus and the remains of 5th Battalion rushed forward, two of his Marines were hit and died instantly, their bodies dropping to the floor, there was nothing anyone could do but keep advancing towards the low wall and use it for cover.

The Army forces arrived next, rushing forward to join the Marines behind cover, they lost a further three of their number as they approached under the hail of fire, Marcus ordered one of his tanks to advance, the Machine gunner sprayed the exposed building with hundreds of rounds, gunning down dozens of the Grunt creatures in seconds, in the meantime the main gunner rotated his turret to a building where a plasma turret was pinning down the UNSC forces and fired on it, the wall blew open, exposing the offices to the Marines, a large group of dead Grunts fell from the building or were lying dead on the floor, dozens of limbs scattered about from the pure force of the explosion and the ensuing shrapnel. Marcus popped his head up and raised his rifle, firing off bursts towards some of the Aliens, he killed a grunt but was forced to drop back behind cover as a burst of plasma from a nearby Elite came towards him. Without warning a large blue shell arced through the sky, the humans knew it meant that at least one Wraith was nearby, the ball of plasma came slamming down between the two forces, thankfully it didn't hit anywhere of significance, it merely left a bubbling crater of plasma that would soon cool off and evaporate in a few seconds. The tank that had been brought forward withdrew, not taking any chances of being hit by a stray Wraith round the UNSC forces were now forced to destroy the enemy tank before they could bring their own forward or else find themselves severely outgunned. A group of Jackals had now taken up positions on the roofs of the buildings and were attempting to pick off any soldier who was firing on the Covenant, a Marine just off to his left attempted to hit one of the Jackals with a burst from his Battle Rifle, but another Jackal cut him down, a strange pink shard piercing the Marines helmet, killing him instantly as the shard began to dim down to a dull grey/black ash colour. The Marines were now pinned and Marcus lifted his head ever so slightly over the low wall, the Covenant were now advancing on them, a dangerous situation, "Anyone with grenades, grab one now, pull the pins on my mark" Marcus said over the comms, he got a couple of clicks in response as acknowledgement of the order, he grabbed the last grenade from his belt, "pull the pins now" he said again, he had no way of knowing how many were able to join him, he counted to three, "throw them over the wall!" he shouted down the comms, he saw at least forty to fifty grenades go over, he knew they probably wouldn't kill the bigger and shielded Elites, but if they killed enough of the Grunts they might fall back, and if not, they can always try get some fire on to them before the Jackals force them back down. Without warning a large boom could be heard echoing across the battlefield, followed by two more, the tracers came from a rooftop behind them, and as Faust looked up he saw the slight glint of light reflecting from the helmet of an ODST, explaining where and what they had been doing the entire time. The Jackals were dealt with now and so slowly but surely Marine and Army forces were advancing, breaching buildings and engaging in the intense fighting that always takes place inside the tight office spaces. Marcus approached a now bullet riddled office building with a group of eight Marines, when ready a Marine with a shotgun placed a blast charge onto the door, as it blew the Marine immediately turned into the building, the loud thudding of the weapon could be heard as 8-gauge shells tore through whatever was in his way. Marcus and the remaining Marines piled into the office and they immediately began a sweep as they passed the corpses of three grunts, their bodies lying torn open by the shotgun shells. As they advanced in the torchlight, the Marines were cautious to check every corner, especially if Elites were standing, cloaked and ready to ambush them from behind, but as the thorough search was ended a Marine had called out clear, they piled into a thin corridor that lead to the stairway, approaching from the ground floor office a large, Ape like creature in heavy armour stepped out into the open swinging a hammer that sent the lead Marine flying back into the others, the man's torso was crushed, he would have died immediately, but Marcus couldn't think about that now as the remaining seven Marines fell back into the open space of the office firing at the beast all the while, they were hitting the creature that was certain as blood spattered the walls and the desks of the room but the Alien didn't care, it just roared, slamming its fist against its chest it flung the hammer down against the floor which sent one of the Marines flying backwards through the air, dazed but relatively unharmed, which is more than could be said for the next unfortunate victim of the Brutish creature as it lifted her straight off the ground, holding her a good four or five feet up, the Alien beast slammed her to the floor, using the sharpened edge of its hammer to tear open the Marines torso, the scream was near unbearable to listen to, but the squad had to keep firing they couldn't worry about their dead comrades right now, Marcus watched the counter on his Assault rifle sink, twelve, another long burst, four, firing again, empty, he dropped the Magazine, he didn't have time to try catching it to be used again he just placed another into the weapon and fired again, the Marine with the Shotgun seemed to the be Alien's next target, if the Marine was scared he wasn't showing it, firing shell after shell into the creature who was visibly weakened but still kept coming, but finally the soldier ran out of ammo and was forced to reload, the beast took its chance, leaping forward with a speed unexpected of the ape like thing it slammed its hammer into the unfortunate soldier, sending him flying as his heavily broken body smashed into the wall and fell limply to the floor, within a matter of minutes the creature had killed three of his Marines and was only just beginning to show signs of slowing down, relying on its hammer now to hold itself steady. As the Alien advanced on a fourth Marine she was left with little more than her pistol to defend herself, the 12.7x40mm rounds seemingly pathetic compared to the punishment this hostile could take. The Marine must have gotten lucky as the creature dropped to the floor, the other three regrouped with her and all poured the remainder of their magazines into the head of the alien, positive it was dead Marcus set about grabbing the tags of the three dead Marines and gathering their ammo, sharing it out with the others and taking the shotgun for himself, he holstered the Assault rifle to his back and loaded the shotgun, then, the five remaining soldiers advanced back down the corridor to the stairwell, it was clear this time. They cleared out the office pretty quickly, no more aliens remained in there, as they stepped back out into the park battlefield, Army medics and Marine corpsmen were treating the wounded, the fighting had gone inside now so it was relatively safe for them to gather up and treat them. The ODST squad had at some point gotten down off their rooftop position and were standing near a building off to the left looking over a map, Marcus thought nothing of it as he and the squad of Marines with him advanced on to another office, they breached the door and as he entered at least six grunts were ahead of him, he fired off several shells and thanks to the close proximity of the aliens to each other a couple of shells were all he needed as the spread tore them to pieces, the four Marines with him then entered and they began the sweep all over again, instead of risking anyone else Marcus took a grenade he had taken from a dead Marine and chucked it down the corridor, when all seemed clear he slowly advanced, finger on the trigger and shotgun raised, but as he arrived at the stairs it was all clear, the building was four stories big but apart from the huddle of grunts it was clear, so Marcus took his squad to check the roof, as he turned the corner from the doorway a Jackal stumbled to its feet and was fiddling with a device on its arm to get its shield active but it was too late, an 8-gauge shotgun shell tore into its face, blowing it near completely off, the Jackal had been alone, Faust decided to check from above the situation on the ground, the tanks remained back, a short distance down their route, the Wraith was still firing but its rounds were sporadic and inaccurate, the only damage was done to empty buildings for the most part, though it was clear there was some fatalities as a medic and a corpsmen were carrying a dead Marine over to a grouping of body bags, setting a sombre tone for the rest of the evening. After another hour of fighting the park was clear, but the creature they had been looking for was either long gone, or had never been here at all, the six tanks advanced through the park and took out the Wraith tank and cutting down some of the remaining Covenant forces before withdrawing to the UNSC positions. The Marines gathered up with the Army, and it was blatantly obvious that they had taken heavy casualties, at least one fifty wounded and about one hundred wounded. They were significantly understrength and many soldiers were exhausted, the ODST's spoke to the Colonel and Sergeant McArthur and then left, and whilst four men wasn't going to make all the difference, it sure as hell was going to add up if the Covenant came back.

The evening was quiet this time, the sky however was erupting in flashes of light as the UNSC and Covenant would once again be fighting for dominance of Harvest's orbit. Most of the soldiers were looking skyward, hoping that it was them who were winning, but those who had been unfortunate enough to witness a Covenant warship knew that even one could fight off a fleet, Admiral Preston Cole, one of the UNSC's most renowned and skilled Admiral's had won a large battle with them last year, but it was 2526 now, and Cole couldn't be everywhere at once, which meant Naval skirmishes were frequent, for the most part the UNSC would win, but if one flew over the landscape of Harvest, the wreckages of frigates and destroyers would occasionally be seen rising from the ground, having fallen into the atmosphere and falling to the ground, the same could be said for the Covenant, their colossal warships forming strangely smooth almost cylindrical structures wherever they hit. As Faust looked skyward he hoped for the UNSC to remain in control of the skies, because if they didn't, the chances of him living would be a lot slimmer as the Covenant would bring to bear thousands of reinforcements, millions even for all he knew, for it seemed like there were millions of Grunts and Elites wherever you turned, they just kept coming. The body bags were loaded onto the back of warthogs and withdrawn, maybe they were the lucky ones, their fight was over, but Marcus made his way over to his Sergeant's position, as her second in command he needed to know what was going to happen next, and as he looked around yet another destroyed park he wondered about what life was like here before the war, kids playing, climbing trees, playing football, rugby, American football, whatever it was kids would play on the field as their parents worked or looked on gossiping with friends or family members, or perhaps it would be a peaceful morning as older members of society sat on the benches admiring the beautiful blue skies, the kids at school and the quiet singing of the birds, the odd bark of a dog, but now, the park was another smouldering ruin, the field cratered the walls crumbled, bullet riddled and covered in scorch marks from the plasma rifles of the enemy, some troops were sat down, examining the remains of the Jackal's strange projectiles, the shard fired had a pinkish hue, but now it was just a strange dull ashen colour. He made his way to Alice who was studying a map of Utgard with the Army Lieutenant and one of his troopers, a young man, mid-twenties perhaps, stubble starting to appear on his face, a common feature among the newly deployed, the Marine Corps and Army both preferred everyone being clean shaven, but with little time to go about doing it, the men were growing beards, and with the frozen weather, most people didn't care and grew their beards, the thicker the better, coupled with the masks and thicker uniforms the men and women of the UNSC on Harvest must have been the most comfortable in the entire front. "Sargeant, Lieutenant" Marcus said as a sign of acknowledgement to the two, they both glanced and gave him a curt nod, and proceeded to stare at the map in silence for a for more minutes before the young Army trooper circled a road that led to a stadium, "it's wide enough to get our tanks down safely, but for the most part, we risk heavy losses, there's no reason for the Covenant not to have set up their heaviest equipment there. But if we want to attack with our armour that road is the one we are going to have to take", Marcus had no idea what was going on, or what was at the stadium, but he listened attentively to the three soldiers, "perhaps if we sent four of the six down the road, and used this road here to flank the enemy, we come from behind and whilst the armour and a squad sized amount of troops reinforce the main force, the remaining infantry push into the arena?" McArthur responded, trying to find a way to minimise casualties it would seem whilst still achieving whatever their objectives were. "What is our objective?" Marcus finally asked, "the Alien creature we spotted earlier, has most likely been moved to that stadium, the Covenant forces have regrouped there, the closed dome provides cover from the air and positions with wide streets have allowed them to set up their remaining wraiths to fire on the surrounding areas, recon squads are currently up there trying to locate the creature, but the chances are it's inside, so it will be room to room with very restrictive fire" the Lieutenant answered, "A full frontal assault there would be suicide with the forces we have then Sir, there's what, a couple of hundred of us, advancing in a column will have half dead in a matter of seconds if they ambush us, advancing scattered they may drop a few of us but they will have us pinned and the buildings on that road aren't going to give us good firing positions, we'd have to waste valuable equipment on tearing holes through walls to go building to building or else use the backstreets which would, if the Covvies were smart, be mined, or have traps or troops in reserve to ambush us in the more restricted positions, our tanks will do some damage but the Wraiths will take them out before we get close, and once that is done they will fire on the infantry in the buildings, it's a massacre, and we have repeated it on every road in the city, and now you want us to advance down Utgard's main road, with four tanks in the open?" Marcus said, his eyes scanning the map, "do they have any form of AA?" he asked, the three other soldiers shared a quick glance, "well no effective form, but given enough time their plasma turrets could tear through a Pelican, or a lucky wraith shot could hit them and take them out" Alice replied, "if we call command, they could have Pelicans here in forty minutes, from there it would be what? Five minutes to the stadium, and from there, boots on the ground in ten, after that, our full force will be in positions we have pre-determined to give us the best advantage, then, as they are distracted, the tanks and a small force we leave in reserve advance up the main road, as soon as they are in range the Scorpions take out any Wraiths in sight, if they can't see them then fir on the covvie positions which would relieve pressure on us, I know it's all reliant on us actually being able to utilise the Pelicans, and surviving deployment, but if we make the battlefield a position of our choice, it will be a lot better than fighting on the enemies terms" Marcus said, he worried he had spoken out of turn and his heart was pounding in his chest, it was worse than being in combat, the others again exchanged glances, they stared at the map as radio reports of more and more covenant positions were marked by the army trooper with them. "It could work" the Lieutenant replied, "if Command will spare us the resources, then we could make it work" he finished, Faust nodded and as the discussions kept on and on, the Lieutenant got to work making the calls on the radio to command, he drew increasingly frustrated and Marcus worried he'd be forced to tell his friends that they were going on a suicide run, but when the Lieutenant returned to the table, his news was entirely unexpected.

"Command has denied us use of pelicans, and our mission in general has been scrubbed, ODST's are going to be deployed to secure the asset, we're digging in here so that an Engineer battalion can be brought up to help build some fortifications, when that happens artillery is to brought up, we'll hold the line, the UNSC Epoch is apparently arriving from Reach within the week with reinforcements, lucky you, will be brought aboard to rest and recover losses" the Lieutenant said, the anger was apparent in his voice, and Marcus didn't blame him, the Marines got to leave for rest off world, and the Army would be taken to command, whilst the Marines are relatively safe in orbit the Army's R&R was going to be within the danger zone of enemy banshees or sudden covenant assault. Marcus gave a curt nod to the three and went outside, he went to find Titch and tell him the news but as he looked around something seemed off, a glimmering appeared in the corner of his eye, he hoped it was just a trick of the light, but as it seemed to move around he realised it was an Elite, he pulled his Assault Rifle from his back and fired, the soldiers around him confused until suddenly a blue beam could be seen hovering in the air as if a ghost was stood there, the bullets made the glimmering creature crackle as they impacted the shield and slowly broke down the cloaking device, but the Elite returned fire, dropping two Marines and wounding an Army trooper, the blue light then vanished and once more the glimmering creature was gone, seconds passed and once more bolts of blue plasma hit the soldiers as they returned fire, this time the fire broke its cloking device, allowing the Marines to see the four-jawed Alien, standing at almost eight feet tall, four more soldiers dropped dead as the creature sprayed Plasma from its rifle before eventually the UNSC forces killed the creature, some Marines approached to make sure it was dead, one fired a pistol round into its head blowing a large hole into face, but it didn't matter, no one had noticed the plasma grenade the Elite had activated and the three Marines were blow apart by the force of explosion and the burning away of their limbs by boiling Plasma, the Elite's body was all but vaporised. After a night on edge, the Engineers arrived, they immediately set to work, placing barricades on street corners and mounting machine guns to their tripods, they set about reinforcing the foxholes and trenches the Marine and Army joint forces had dug in the night, using iron bars to prop up the dirt and ensure they had a more solid ground to walk on, on rooftops and within buildings they set about mounting Gauss Turrets to deal with the heavier infantry and the light covenant vehicles, though with the combined fire of each Gauss turret, they could easily destroy a Wraith or even a Phantom troop transport. By midday the UNSC positions had gone from a ragtag defensive position to a fortress. The tanks had been arranged to act as static defences whilst ensuring they were exposed in only a minimal way, this therefore meant they had the firepower to take on almost anything the Aliens could throw at them, which relieved Marcus as he wanted to live long enough to at least enjoy the peace he could experience onboard the UNSC Epoch, all he had to do was wait five more days.

The hours passed slowly, and as the hours turned to days Marcus and the remnants of the UNSC forces at his position sat on edge, the gunfire echoed throughout their positions as the ODST's attempted to secure the asset that the Marines should have been taking, he felt almost guilty that others were dying when they were just as capable at mounting an offensive, but he had to wipe the thoughts from his mind. Wraith shots sometimes found their way over to their fortifications, damaging the static defences, but thankfully there were no casualties and as the fifth day rolled around Pelicans landed in the thin streets, here to withdraw the Marines to the UNSC Epoch, the first in its line of UNSC Carriers of the Epoch class, over 8000ft long it could hold the remains of his Division and more, the Epoch would be full of new recruits, and the Veterans knew they would be grilled for information, most of it pathetic stuff like 'what is it like to kill an Alien?', questions whose answers will provide no real useful answers. As he watched his platoon, or what was left of it, board the dropship he felt relief at knowing he would have some escape from the battlefield, but as he himself walked the dropships small ramp to the troop compartment he saw the two wormlike conglomerations in his head as they fired their plasma beams towards him, the sight of the Marine crushed by the Ape like beasts Hammer, he realised at that moment, he would leave the Battlefield, but the battlefield would not leave him, and the longer this war continued, the longer it would continue to haunt him.

The Pelican broke out of Harvest with ease, and through the open door to the pilot's compartment Marcus admired the hundreds of thousands of stars in the distance, he wondered to himself if one of those stars was the home world of the Aliens they were fighting, and then wondered how many more species could be out there, and how many worlds could Humanity find to colonise? It was a wonderous site and relaxed Marcus despite knowing that there could be trillions of more enemies, that there were still trillions of more potential places for humanity to live in peace. Ten minutes passed and soon the formation of pelicans approached the UNSC battlegroup, it was an awe-inspiring site, thirty battleships, three destroyers, four carriers and a phoenix class colony ship that had been converted into a frigate alongside fifteen regular frigates, it was a formidable force and one which ensured that when they were on the ground that no more Covenant forces could be deployed without heavy losses, and even more so, that they couldn't bring their plasma beams to bare and glass them where they stand. Landing in the deck of the UNSC Epoch, Marcus was glad to be off Harvest, and as he and his platoon stepped off the dropship Sergeant McArthur was there to greet them, ordering them all to form up the battered Division that now stood before the Admiral of the Epoch wasn't even the size of a regiment, they'd fought for so long that there were barely a hundred and fifty of them left, they might have more if any of the wounded they brought back recovered enough, but chances are they'd be flooded by new recruits fresh out of basic training on Reach regardless, or if not, would be folded into a different division and a new officer would be brought in to replace McArthur, who would reprise her role as a squad leader and nothing more, Faust almost laughed at the thought, he knew she didn't particularly enjoy the pressures of leading, but she was the kind of person to enjoy the power trip she could have whilst they were on leave on the Epoch. "Attention!" Alice barked as the Admiral walked up to the gathered Marines, the men and women snapped straight as the old looking man approached them, a grizzled beard and a cigar in his mouth, against UNSC regulations, but no one really paid attention to it, they were at war, so if they were to die they were at least going to enjoy the little things, the old Admiral removed the lit cigar from his mouth, "At ease" he called, his voice was deep, but there was a softness to it, he probably saw the sorry state of the troops before him and felt pity for them, "Welcome aboard the Epoch, this will be your home for the next two weeks as you get used to working alongside the new recruits who are to fill your Division back to fighting strength" there was a pause, as the Veteran marines gave a collective groan at the news, "I understand your reservations, believe me, I do, but we are facing a technologically and potentially numerically superior enemy, and we need to win on Harvest, not one Human planet is going to fall to these Alien bastards, but to ensure that we need full strength units, and these Recruits have no idea what they are going to be facing, we're keeping news of the Covenant invasion censored, they still think they are fighting insurrectionists, so you are going to teach them all you know, and you're going to make sure they are as ready as can be in the fortnight you have, it isn't much of a leave, but it's of the utmost importance, any questions?" The Admiral finished, taking a long drag from the cigar, "Sir" Marcus shouted out, if no one else was going to ask, he may as well, "Will we have to serve under these new green officers?" he could almost feel the collective force drag him down as everyone tensed themselves for the Admiral's response, "I'm afraid so, you'll all be reassigned to your respective platoons, I'm sorry it isn't what you want to hear, is that all?" the Marines had nothing to say now, their lives were in the hands of people who'd been out of basic for a matter of weeks, with no combat experience and tactics suited to fighting insurrectionists and not the Covenant. As the group fell silent the Admiral nodded, "Dismissed!" he shouted, the Marines stood to attention, saluted, and walked away, Marcus made his way to Titch and Alice, "You just had to ask" Titch said with a laugh as he slapped Marcus's shoulder, "We needed to know" he replied, "I don't like it, they should have promoted some of us, put us in charge, these guys are going to get us all fucking killed" Alice said in response, "I don't like it either, I gotta admit I sure as hell don't want to deploy with a group of fresh faced recruits into an active warzone, but we can't do anything about it, so we just do what the Admiral says and make sure they are up to speed, gather up everybody's helmet cam data, we'll scrounge up some images and videos of battles, and make sure they know what they are getting into...And we'll have to keep an eye on their correspondence as well it seems" Marcus said to them both, Titch nodded and Alice sighed, but they all knew what they had to do.

A week had passed since the Marines had been brought back to the Epoch, and apart from a few minor skirmishes with Covenant fighters, which Longswords and point defence cannons made light work off, there wasn't much to be concerned about, they'd briefed their new officers, taught the new troops how to deal with the known species of Covenant they had faced, and shown them video recordings and images of what they could do to fight back, some of the recruits went pale, some even threw up as they saw cloaked Elites slice soldiers apart and then drift back into the darkness, the wormlike creatures particularly disgusted some of the new recruits as they saw from Marcus' own helmet camera data as the heavy unit blew them apart from the colossal form they had taken.

"Grunts are the, well, Grunts of the Covenant armed forces, they are tenacious little buggers, and frankly, a little bit pitiful, but don't let that stop you killing them if they come at you, their weapons will burn through your army, more than a few shots to a vital part of your body, and you'll die very quickly, anywhere else, and the scorch marks will leave you in tremendous pain, sure we can give you prosthetics, or skin grafts, you lose an arm and get a metal one you might even get to fight them again, but either way, these Aliens will come at you with their bare hands, and despite their small stature, they are strong, here, watch this" Titch said, pointing to a screen where footage of an Army trooper stormed one of the park buildings with the Marines, ambushed by a grunt who broke his arm, the trooper drew his knife and attempted to stab the little creature, who easily deflected the Marine, grabbing him by his throat and punching him in the chest, the Marine whose helmet cam was recording it fired on the Grunt who took the rounds before using the Army troopers own knife to slice his throat before a second army trooper came in from a back door and gunned down the Alien with her shotgun, the recording stopped. "That grunt, is about 5ft tall, give or take, the Army trooper, is about 5'11, and yet that height gave no advantage, the shorter frame and bulkier body is beneficial to the Grunt, the ease at which the grunt overpowered the trooper's swings for it is clear for all to see, do not get close to a Grunt unless you know you can kill it quickly, do not let them engage you like that, if you do, you will almost always lose, understood?" Titch asked, the officers sat before him nodded, Titch smiled, because he knew they would most likely ignore him, their rank bred arrogance and it was the poor recruits under them that would suffer when they redeployed to Harvest, Marcus looked around as some of the Officers stood, as if they were about to leave when Admiral Langley stepped onto the Deck, everyone stood to attention at that point, the Commander of the Epoch took his pipe from this mouth and put everyone at ease. "I'm afraid we're going to have to deploy you sooner than planned, I know you veterans expected another week of R&R but Utgard has fallen, the Army forces that were stationed there thought they had it reclaimed after the joint Army/ODST push sent the Aliens packing, but within an hour they'd been overrun by hundreds of thousands of Covenant forces, Phantoms, Banshees and Seraphs fired into their positions, causing utter chaos, as our units tried to focus fire on the incoming airborne threat, the Phantoms deployed their troops and Ghosts then came from the plains outside the city, their rapid onslaught forced the Army and ODST units to fall back, within hours the city centre had fallen to the enemy and by the end of Saturday all UNSC forces had either been destroyed or withdrawn, were it not for the need to boost morale we would most likely have nuked the fucking place, but we need the planet back, all of it, tomorrow, on Monday, we'll set you on the Pelicans, and you WILL take Utgard and you will hold it. ODST forces will be dropped by the UNSC Hannibal tonight and secure landing zones for you, get some rest, and good luck", with that, the old, gruff looking man left the deck and the Marines followed suite, Marcus, Titch and Alice left for the mess deck, a lot of the green forces were sat there, the obvious fear in their eyes, the three of them lined up, followed the queue and took their food to an empty table.

"So, Utgard, again, how are you feeling about it gents?" Alice asked, "Well, we're soldiers, may as well fight, besides, what would we do without the Aliens? Apart from kill each other, and I mean, let's face it, that was getting a bit boring, we've only been doing it for what? A hundred thousand years or more?" Titch said with a grim laugh as he placed a large forkful of Ham and chips into his mouth, "I don't care to be honest" Marcus said in response to her question, "I have probably become dangerously numb to the killing, I just want to win, and one day, it'll be there Planets we invade" he didn't look any of his friends in the eye at that point, just went about cutting into his own ham. "Well, happy lads you are" Alice laughed as she placed a couple of chips in her mouth. From that point on they made small talk, they had little else to do that day and as the hours passed by and the mess hall emptied they finally decided to return to the barracks. Thousands of men and women, trying their best not to panic about their first deployment, though it was noticeably quieter, and Faust found himself wondering about the ODSTs in their drop pods, would they make It through the night against the Covenant? How would they hold the landing zones for so long. Marcus recalled learning of a battle, from a war that happened centuries ago, the battle of the Bulge, and he thought back to the day he learnt of it, in basic training, and wondered how the Airborne held off such a huge and determined force, and the ODSTs were going to deploy into a similar situation today, in smaller groups, against hundreds of thousands of Aliens with superior technology, the Germans lost, but only because of a determined defender, the ODSTs might have to face a determined defender, and then have to defend themselves after, with limited supply and limited equipment.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter 3**_

Marcus shook in his seat as the Pelican was bracketed by Covenant Plasma fire, his new Platoon leader, Lieutenant Javid, called for everyone to ready themselves over the Comms. The fear was already noticeable in his voice, and he hoped that he would find a way to hide it for the sake of the rookie Marines with him, because Marcus knew that whilst the ODSTs will be doing their best to hold the landing zone, they're going to need support immediately, and if Lieutenant Javid began to panic, a lot of good people were going to die today for nothing. One of the marines next to him was patting her magazine against her helmet before placing it into her Sniper, he didn't really understand why people felt the need to do that. In basic he was told about it, but he forgot the reason, perhaps to ensure the rounds are secure, whatever it was, he pushed the menial thought from his mind and checked his Assault Rifle, he flicked the safety off and placed his helmet on, pulling his mask over his face, Faust began to dread the cold weather and the fight, he had no problem killing the Alien threat, but he wished to be home, for proper rest. "Alright Marines, stand up, get ready" Javid had called over their radios, the Marines did as he said as the Pelican came to a sudden halt, the doorway opened and the soldiers piled out, Wraith shells were firing onto their positions and as the Pelican they had been deployed from attempted to lift off and return to the Epoch, it was hit by one of the large Plasma Shells, its cockpit burned opened, the two pilots inside vaporised as the remains of the dropship came crashing to the ground, destroying an unmanned barricade and causing the front of a shop to collapse. "Push forward Marines, we'll cover the gaps in the line whilst the rest of the Pelicans deploy their units, then we advance when the 'hogs arrive" the Lieutenant barked, Marcus was happy to hear an order from his CO and promptly turned to advance to the ODSTs position, the two Corpsman that deployed with the deployed Platoons set to work on assisting the wounded ODSTs whilst the Marines set up their equipment or began to fire on the exposed Aliens ahead of them, the recruits were, for now, coping well as dozens of Grunts rushed forward into the hail of gunfire, dropping dead, those that ran were cut down by the Brute's behind them, it was a pitiful sight. A second Pelican now landed behind them and deployed their Marine forces, with them dropped a Mongoose ATV, a pair of Marines immediately mounted it and set off to the South West, Marcus didn't know why, but presumably to link up with the other LZ's. As turrets were set up they soon managed to carve down any Aliens who broke cover, the ODSTs soon ceased firing, their Submachine Guns ran dry and so had their pistols, they'd held on all night and soon withdrew to a nearby building that was set up as a command post for rest, they'd be lucky to be withdrawn so chances are they'd wait for ammo and join with the Marines as they forced their way back into Utgard. An hour passed and the small LZ was packed with Marines and their equipment, some ODSTs were gathering ammunition and Mongooses were driving off in the directions of the other LZ's. "Staff Sergeant Grantham, get your squad over here, now" the Lieutenant shouted from the Command Post, "Faust, Little, Mikhailov, Winters, with me, let's go" Grantham said, Marcus got up and followed the five men down to their Platoon Leader and gathered around. "We're cramped here, and that makes us inviting targets, we need to extend our line and rally with the other UNSC forces before we can retake the city, I want you to scout around, we've sent out Mongoose units but we've lost contact with all but two, we need larger forces, you, Sierra 1 and Oscar 6 are being sent forward to link up with this LZ" Lieutenant Javid said, pointing to a grid square on his map that Grantham swiftly copied down to his own, "Once there, report back, we've had trouble establishing stable communications so we are desperate to make sure we are as fighting fit as possible". Faust's new Sergeant gave a nod and gestured to the gathered squad to follow him, the Marines checked their weapons and soon had left the safety of the LZs perimeter. Despite having survived the past hours engagement, Grantham was taking it slow, too slow, every second they spent out in the exposed street made them easy targets, "Sir" Marcus called out to the lead man, "what is it Corporal?" the Sergeant replied, his head visibly scanning every building, most were ruins but sometimes there were intact structures, and those were often the ones the Covenant liked to use to ambush the Marines or Army forces who would be on patrol, "Sir, we need to move faster than this, if there's Cloaked Elites or Grunt squads in these ruins we're going to make very good targets for them, we need to link up with the other Marine forces and sort out communications as fast as possible" Marcus said to his squad lead, the man was silent for a few seconds and his reply sank his heart, "if I need your input, I'll ask for it Corporal, we advance at this pace, and scan the buildings as we pass, anyone sees anything, call it out", "if you say so sir" Marcus replied, and the Sergeant turned as if to scold him, but the NCO quickly dropped to the ground, his body limp as the green glow of Plasma slowly dimmed to a black scorch mark, the Sergeant was dead. "Everyone spread out! Find cover, now!" Marcus shouted as he dropped to his knee, firing his assault rifle at the location the shot had come from, but the Alien had moved on, taken cover as the street now fell eerily silent, Marcus slowly moved over to his dead Sergeant and dragged him behind cover, grabbing his tags he placed them into a spare pouch attached to his armour before scavenging the dead man's ammunition. Over his headset Marcus told the squad to advance carefully up to an abandoned home that was still intact, they would breach the door and clear it out, setting it up as a strong point and calling for one of the other squads to support them. As they advanced Mikhailov caught a glimmer in the corner of her eye, immediately firing at it the sparks of the bullets creating a series of sparks. It quickly disappeared but the Marine kept firing her rifle, "Cease fire Marine, do not waste your ammo!" Marcus shouted over the rattle of the gun.

"Everyone, stack up here" Marcus ordered, the remaining four Marines lined up behind him, fortunately Titch had a shotgun and so placed himself behind Faust, "I'll kick the door, and throw in a frag grenade, when it goes off, stand in the door way and fire until your shotgun's empty, let's not take any chances with the new guys, if you hit anything we'll move in, understood?" Marcus asked his friend, "Understood mate" Titch replied, pulling back on the pump to ensure a shell was ready. Marcus took a frag from his belt and pulled the pin, he waited for a second and then kicked open the front door of the homestead, throwing the explosive into the building he swiftly moved to the other side of the doorway to allow Titch easier access. Seconds passed that felt like hours before the loud explosion echoed through the home, Titch stood in the doorway firing twelve 8 Gauge shells into the front room, when he was out of ammo he stood back and Marcus ordered the other three Marines into the home whilst Titch began the process of reloading, "Clear" Marcus shouted, the three Marines with him followed him into the corridor, they approached the first door and Marcus opened it up, inside were grunts taking cover behind desks they'd overturned, presumably this room was an office for someone working from home but it didn't matter now, Mikhailov fired off her Battle Rifle and hit two of the Grunts straight in the head, they dropped dead immediately, a third Grunt however managed to hit Winters in the leg with its plasma pistol and a fourth was about to prime a plasma grenade before Titch stormed back into the room and gunned it down, Winters stood there, frozen, "Mikhailov, stay with him, for fuck sake, Titch, on me" Marcus ordered, the two men moved further down the corridor now, they breached the final door before the stairs, Marcus sprayed the room with his Assault Rifle, when it was certain that the room was clear they moved cautiously to the upstairs, a large open room with two Jackals and an Elite observing a hologram of what was probably a high ranking Elite giving sermon. Marcus had heard of the strange Sermon like gatherings the Covenant held but didn't really believe it, he was confused now he had seen it with his own eyes, but he didn't have time to think on it, they should strike whilst they still had some semblance of surprise, Marcus fired on the two Jackals and they dropped, lifeless, to the floor, the Elite turned and activated its Energy Sword, it was too late, Titch fired three shells into the Alien, the first two merely broke its shield, but the third tore through the Elites armour and flesh, tearing a large hole into its chest, the creature roared in agony before it too dropped dead. "Good work, let's go get the other two then" Marcus said after the brief engagement. They turned back and headed down the stairs, Winters was sat in the front room, Mikhailov had taken position by a window, there were just three of them now, Winters was frozen with fear and Grantham was dead. "We'll hold here, radio one of the other squads, we need to get to the other Landing Zone or we need to withdraw but either way we need to leave here and we can't do it alone" Marcus said. Mikhailov nodded, Titch merely stood there stoically, Winters was sat shaking, shell shocked. Faust walked over to him and took the Radio off his back, "Sierra 1, this is Zulu 2 we are in need of assistance, do you copy?", there was silence, "Sierra 1, this is Zulu 2, we need assistance, copy?", the Radio remained silent, "shit" Marcus muttered to himself, "Oscar 6, Zulu 2, we are in need of assistance do you Copy?" the Radio again remained silent, "Bugger, I think we're alone" Marcus spoke up, we can't stay here, we'll fall back, I need to go out there and grab Grantham's map, I imagine the Covvies already know any other UNSC positions, but to be safe, I'll take it, Titch, holster the Shotgun, take Winters' Assault Rifle and take up position at the window with Mikhailov, I would rather not have my face blown off" Marcus said, Titch placed his shotgun over his back and took the Assault Rifle from Winters, as well as a couple of spare Magazines. Marcus made his way to the door and peered around the street, it seemed empty and so he advanced down the street over to his former Sergeants body, rifle raised, the few seconds it took to make his way there made his stomach tighten as the eerie silence overtook him, the corpse of his former squad leader lay where Marcus had left him, he searched the man's pockets and pouches until he found the map, then sprinted off, back to the safety of his squad.

"Mikhailov, take care of Winters, get ready to move out, we're pulling back" Marcus said, he walked over to the Radio and placed the straps over his shoulders, he made sure it was firmly held in place over his back before turning to check his three squad mates were ready, Winters had his side arm but Titch carried the man's assault rifle, it wouldn't matter anyway, Winters was in shell shock, he would be of no use to them in combat, Marcus just wanted to get him back to safety so he could get help, away from the hell-hole of a city they were fighting in. "Everyone ready?" He asked, Titch and Mikhailov nodded, the four of them left the home, passing the body of their fallen Sergeant, Marcus had them moving at a faster pace than they had been moving before, ensuring they weren't at risk of an ambush again. After a half hour of walking they returned to the LZ, apart from the occasional rattle of machine gun fire from their turrets, the LZ was calm, the Marines were mostly sitting around resting. Marcus made his way to what seemed to be a Command Post with a group of officers most of them laughing and joking as if they weren't sat in the middle of a warzone. "Lieutenant Javid?" Marcus asked, one of the officers turned to him, "that's me, what can I do for you?" the officer replied, sounding more like a human resources employee than a commanding officer. "Sir, I'm Corporal Marcus Faust, of Zulu 2, you ordered us to seek out other LZs and establish secure communications. Sergeant Grantham was KIA, Private Winters is shell shocked, he needs medical help, Mikhailov, Little and myself are the only combat effective units of the squad, we lost contact with Sierra 1 and Oscar 6 we had to withdraw" Marcus said, his voice was emotionless for the debrief, Lieutenant Javid merely glanced at him, no concern for the loss of twelve Marines, "Thank you for informing me Corporal Faust, fortunately, we got working communications with the rest of the Marines in the city about twenty minutes ago" he said with a dismissive tone, a hint to Marcus to leave the command post, the officer turned away and Marcus rubbed his brow instinctively despite the helmet blocking his hand from his face, he turned away and left the CP. Mikhailov was talking to a Corpsman about Winters who sat staring into the darkened sky, his eyes lifeless as if his emotions had been stripped away, where others flinched at the odd explosion he merely continued his gaze into the clouded atmosphere. Titch sat, helmet off, mask down drinking from his canteen. A wraith shell flew overhead, slamming into a building just behind the Landing Zone. Marcus saw the casualties laying out in the Medical Post and was shocked by the recent conversation, of his Commanding Officer's emotionless reaction to the loss of twelve more Marines, and he wished for Alice to be in charge again, he wondered how high the Divisions strength was after their redeployment and hoped that whoever their General was, was a lot more conservative with the lives of the men and women under their command.

As midday came around, Marcus stood by a turret next to one of the new recruits to the Division, he was just gazing around, scanning for any hostiles, despite being here for hours no major offensives had been launched, and this worried Marcus deeply, the Covenant would be preparing a defence, or worse, planning to destroy the scattered Marines. Just because the UNSC forces could talk to each other, didn't mean they could easily arrive to reinforce their positions, especially if the Covenant had moved into the gaps in their lines, they needed to move, not wait. He started to wonder what the city would have looked like before the war, before the glassing, when the sunlight would beam down across the skies, but he couldn't, and it worried him that he couldn't remember what peace felt like, for most of the days and in most locations across Harvest it snowed, sometimes if they were lucky it would stop for a couple of hours, maybe even a day or two, but it was a frozen waste for the most part, Utgard was one of the largest urban areas on Harvest before the war, and now it was just ruins, there were few other towns, but he imagined they were the same as Utgard. Harvest was a very rural planet before the war began several months ago, so perhaps the villages had escaped the worst of the fighting and orbital bombardments, but he would never know. He was knocked from his thoughts as the Marine next to him fired a couple of bursts from the turret, Marcus levelled his assault rifle and looked down the road, there were three Elites and with them stood dozens of grunts who were cautiously jogging forwards, the turret had cut down three of them, but their pistols fired surprisingly fast and soon Marcus had to take cover, the Marine lay down awkwardly and squeezed the trigger of the turret, but without being able to see none of the two men were sure they were hitting back, Marcus quickly popped up and fired a burst from his rifle, six rounds hit one of the little Alien creatures but it continued coming, firing its plasma pistol, forcing him to drop back behind cover. He pulled one of the two grenades he had left from his belt, he pulled the pin and counted for what felt like three or four seconds, then he chucked it over the rubble he was crouched behind, the explosion shook the two marines but as he popped his head over to see what happened, he was confronted by the Amber eyes and four jaws of an Elite, he barely had time to jump back as it swung its fist towards Marcus, thankfully it had no sword just its plasma rifle but the power in the muscles of an Elite would have been enough to daze him, long enough for the Alien to fire off enough bursts of its weapon, killing him in a couple of shots, the second marine dropped the turret and swung his battle rifle into his hands, the three round burst weapon did little except make the creatures shield flicker, but it was enough time for Marcus to recover his sense and join with shooting the Elite, it roared and fired its plasma rifle, killing the Marine Marcus was stationed with, just in time a woman turned the corner into the small outpost, she fired a shotgun dead into the Elites head, the shield dropped immediately, Marcus' rifle ran dry, his counter hit zero and he was forced to reload, but the woman pumped the shotgun, the shell pierced the helmet of the Alien and the force blew off the left side of its face, the beast fell to the floor, rifle reloaded Marcus stood, nodded towards the soldier alongside him and began firing at the Grunts who had followed in their officers footsteps only to now be greeted by the shells of a shotgun and the high velocity rounds of an assault rifle, the little creatures who didn't drop dead turned and ran, but one did something that no one expected, it pulled out two plasma grenades from some sort of compartment it carried, the grenades were primed as it charged towards another of the Marines guard posts, the soldiers inside managed to gun it down and the Alien went up in blue goo as the creatures grenades detonated, there wasn't much left of the body, the plasma would have vaporized most of it, and the remnants would have been blown off down the road and into the ruins around. "Thanks, for the help, you saved my life" Marcus said to the Marine next to him, she seemed shocked at the sight of the Grunt that had tried to charge her friends, she just nodded, and Marcus didn't try make her talk, he picked up the dead Marine who had tried to fight off the Elite and placed him carefully over his shoulder, taking him outside, he walked towards the Medical post, Hornets flew overhead now, he had no idea from where they came from, they didn't deploy with the Marines when they were sent from the Epoch. One of them fired a volley of missiles as it whizzed eastwards.

"Corpsman?" Marcus called as he approached the medical post, which was little more than a tarp tied up from one ruin to another with camp beds for the wounded and those needing field surgery. "Is he alive?" a man shouted back, pulling gloves from his hand and wiping his brow, "No, an Elite got him, burns through and through" Marcus replied solemnly, "fuck, alright, follow me" the Corpsman said, gesturing him, the two men walked over towards a part of a ruined building, the place was filled to the brim with body bags, stacked up towards the ruined roof, the Marine grabbed another one, empty of course, and lay it out on the floor, Marcus placed the Marine into the opened bag as gently and respectfully as he could. The Corpsman zipped the body bag back up, and Marcus helped add him to the pile of the dead, it was a harrowing site to see so many dead, and he hoped none of his friends were in one of the bags. Marcus and the Corpsman exchanged a curt nod and he walked out, overhead the smoke trails of Artillery shells could be seen, if the Artillery had begun firing and there were Hornets overhead it must mean a big push was coming, he hoped this would be the one, Utgard would be liberated and the ground war could end, the Marines merely cleaning up the remnants in the countryside and that would be it, the UNSC could fight into covenant space or even hold the line for long enough for the enemy to decide a war would not be worth fighting, bleeding the enemy so badly they wished for peace. "Marines, listen up!" Lieutenant Javid shouted over the increasing thump of artillery and whizzing of Hornet VTOLs overhead. "We're going to move out, link up with the other units of the Division, and advance into the city centre, from there we hold the line, ODST forces are to be dropped from the UNSC Pillar of Autumn, the four hundred strong ODST force will push their way in and link up with us, once we win this engagement, we'll be pulled off the line, get yourselves ready we move out in five" he explained, Marcus was squad lead now, and he had to keep them alive with a Lieutenant who wished them all dead. "Fuck me" Marcus mumbled to himself. He worried when he realised he was in command now, the thought had been removed from his mind, he hoped for the wars end and didn't think about what had to happen for that to be achieved. "Alpha, on me, now" Marcus called over his headset, he placed his helmet on and gave it a tap, making sure it was secure, he suddenly thought back to the time on the Pelican when he questioned why another Marine did that, he smirked at the pettiness now he was mimicking the same action, he pulled his mask over his face and waited, Titch was the first to arrive, followed by Mikhailov, Lieutenant Javid ordered the Marines to move out, Mongoose's and Warthogs and were the first to advance, the Mongoose units were to act as improvised force recon whilst the 'hogs were to be used in support, but as the Marines were leaving Marcus was forced to wait, "Is Winters that bad?" he asked the last two members of his squad, "yes sir" Mikhailov answered, "I don't think he has much time left in the Marines, first Pelican off world has his name on it, the Aliens were just too much for him, can't say I blame him" she finished, Marcus sighed and gave a nod, "We move out then, stay close to me, trust me and Titch, if Javid orders you to do anything that seems suicidal follow my orders instead, I don't trust him, not after the amount of cock ups he has made today. Understood?" Marcus said to Mikhailov, "I understand" she replied to him, Marcus smiled under his mask and the three of them left, making up the rear of the Marine forces, cackles of gunfire could be heard throughout the city, and above the Marines the darkness was lit by fresh fire cause by the Artillery duel that was going on, Wraith 'shells' flew overhead casting eerie blue glows over the city whilst the smoke flumes of Artillery Shells from the Cobra's created some artificial cloud cover, in the distance Longswords, Hornets and Banshees fought for control of the skies, Marcus hadn't seen an aerial battle in the skies of the Harvest before, and if he wasn't forced to scan the buildings and parks around him for enemy contacts he'd find himself glued to the spectacle above. It was clear the human pilots had more skill, but the covenant had the firepower and the technology, which just about tipped their favour. "Contact right!" a Marine shouted, firing into nothing, "Cease fire" Marcus shouted up the line, "If you don't see a shimmer don't fucking fire! Conserve your ammo, if you think they are cloaked call it out and wait for a sign, don't waste ammo" he said over the comm links, there were clicks of acknowledgement and the line continued to advance, the warthogs kept back their turrets facing the direction the Marine had called out to ensure they were all covered. Some troops were beginning to search the buildings and the lines stretched thinner, after an hour of advancing the Division, or what was left had reunited, but they must have been behind schedule because out of the darkness hundreds of flames appeared before burning out, then hundreds of small chutes could be seen deploying, Marcus understood now why fighters and VTOLs had been engaged, they were distracting the enemy Anti-Aircraft fire and ensured the enemy fighters couldn't attack the incoming Orbital Drop Shock Troopers in their pods. Marcus pulled a map out of one of his pouches and checked their coordinates, they were still a good six or seven miles away from the centre of Utgard, and the ODSTs were elite units, but there was a small number of them compared to the Marines, and if they weren't there to reinforce them they'd be overrun, forcing the Marines to retake the entire city alone, as opposed to half the city. "Lieutenant we need to move" Marcus said over the radio link in his headset, "I understand that Corporal but we have time" the Lieutenant replied nonchalantly, "Sir the ODSTs are dropping as we speak you can literally see them in the sky, we can sit here and let the Covenant focus them down, encircle them and destroy them, or we can advance to our objective and allow the ODSTs to help us take the remainder of Utgard" Marcus said, anger visible in his voice, "Understood Corporal, since you are so eager, take a platoon sized group and move up road India, there's at least a hundred covenant defenders scattered in the ruins along that road, and a shield blocks us from the North, if you think you can breach it and get us going again by all means, go ahead" the Lieutenant said. Marcus hesitated, he was eager to get going, but he wasn't willing to throw lives away against a strong point, but at the same time, another unit was going to have to move along that road and clear it out, so why not him and his volunteers. "Okay sir, I need at least seventeen volunteers, give or take a few" Marcus said, he made his position clear on the HUD on their helmets and three squads him, "Alright, we move up, carefully, how many do we have?" he asked rhetorically, he counted up the troops who volunteered, "okay, eight on each side of the road, keep at least a metre between each other and call out any enemies you see, scrounge grenades and ammo, and if anyone has a grenade launcher speak out now" Marcus explained to his group, he gave them a couple of minutes and then they advanced along the road, leaving the small car park behind them.

The first one hundred metres was quiet, everyone advanced carefully and quickly, it almost seemed like Javid had been given false intel, but as they crested a small hill further up the road, the wreckages of four mongoose ATVs were burning, scorch marks littered the road and pavements and the bodies of five Marines lay where they once stood, their corpses badly burned or mauled by strange looking orange spikes. The upper sections of abandoned buildings were covered in bullet holes, the troops must have been able to fire back a few bursts before being forced to retreat, which was encouraging for the Marcus who could at least expect a few weakened hostiles, but as he was thinking that, bursts of Plasma fire cut down three of the Marines to the left of the road and forced the others to scatter, finding cover wherever they could, "shit, did anyone see where that came from" a Marine called out over comms, "sir, you jumped into the very building those bolts came from, I'd stay frosty if I were you" another Marine said, Marcus poked his head out from behind the small pile of rubble he lay prone behind, a pair of Marines were lined against a door, one was placing a breach charge onto it, the second stood ready to charge in once the charge was detonated, he had a Battle Rifle, which wasn't the greatest close range weapon, but the buildings and ruins needed clearing so they would have to make do with what they had, and at least those two were doing something, Marcus looked to his left where the Marines had been cut down, from his HUD he knew they were dead, so he glanced further back, craning his neck awkwardly, one Marine was pointing to something and another had her grenade launcher at the ready, suddenly you could hear a 'flump' sound and an explosion happened just above Marcus' head, he assumed that was where one of the Alien positions was, because it would be rather embarrassing if the Marines were trying to kill him instead, he laughed slightly at the thought, with the enemy position hit the two Marines stacked to breach moved into the building, or, at least, they tried, as the explosion blew the door open, the second Marine skirted the first, Battle Rifle at the ready but it didn't matter, he was cut down by the same strange orange spikes the recon Marines had been killed with, the first Marine grabbed the man's body and pulled him back to safety, but by the HUD it was clear the man was dead, that was four Marines down already, Marcus needed to take charge of the situation. "Alright, the Grenade Launcher, stays where she is, the Marine with her, stay with her, spot for each other and keep us all covered, you are our heaviest weapons team, so stay safe and stay alert, the rest of the Marines to my left, all over you regroup at the building to my direct left, clear it, set yourself up in that building, the centre of the street is too dangerous, so we're going to use our breach charges to blow through the walls instead, we go house to house, room to room, when you reach the shield, stop, we go no further until we can figure out where the power source is, understood?" he said through comms, he got several clicks of acknowledgement and with that he used hand signals to gesture to the Marines behind him, they all made their way into the building to Marcus' direct right.

"Alright, we're going to do the same, we breach walls, then we clear the buildings, be careful, they hide everywhere, if you suspect something is cloaked, call it out, we'll figure something out, understood" Marcus asked, "Yes sir" the group of Marines responded, Marcus pulled a breach charge from one of his pouches, they didn't have many, so he had to hope that there were enough to make it through each covenant strongpoint along Road India. He placed it securely on one of the walls, he activated the charge and it began to bleep quickly, it wouldn't detonate until Marcus linked his detonator but it was a reassuring sound that meant it functioned as it should, some of the Marines knocked over some furniture to make sure that they had some extra cover, the remainder had stacked a good three or four feet back, safe enough distance to not get themselves blown up, but close enough that they could advance rapidly through the breach and find themselves cover or engage the enemy. Marcus looked around, they were as ready as they were going to be, "breaching" Marcus shouted as he detonated the charge, part of the wall came crumbling down and one of the Marines chucked in a grenade, once it had exploded they all advanced, some grunts stood dazed and confused, waving their pistols around and firing blindly, one of the Marines was grazed and suffered a minor burn but survived, the rest of the group gunned down the aliens gathered in the room, it looked like an opticians, glasses lay scattered about, glass was shattered everywhere along the floor and eye charts were lining some of the walls, it was a strange place to set up a strongpoint. "Clear" one of the Marines called out, Marcus glanced around, he nodded, content with the calling, "alright, move up, you, you, and you, downstairs, you and you, with Titch" he pointed to the man next to him "you'll take upstairs, the rest of you, we'll clear out the exam rooms, they'll be tight, so be careful", the Marines advanced, following their orders and advancing in separate directions, Marcus advanced down the tight corridor, there were at least seven exam rooms to clear, and barely enough Marines with him to clear them, followed by Mikhailov, Marcus stood at the door to one of the rooms, he kicked it open, inside was one of the strange Ape like aliens he had a couple of weeks prior, it was examining the technology and equipment inside, though it seemed less than impressed with it as it began smashing everything, Marcus fired into the back of the beasts neck and his assault rifle rounds shredded into the beasts throat, but it turned, grabbing Marcus and lifting him with just one arm, even as it bled out, blood pouring from its huge jaw and out of its neck it still had the strength to lift him and all his kit with ease, Marcus dropped his rifle, his vision began to blur, he tried to calm himself and went for the knife holstered on his shoulder, and with it he stabbed the alien in the eye, he was aiming for the top of its skull but with his vision blurred he was content with wounding it more severely, the creature roared and its blood spurted across his helmet, even with his mask covering his nose the smell was horrendous, but thankfully, the wound forced the Brute flinch, dropping Marcus down to the ground, he clambered for his weapon, Mikhailov finally had a shot lined up and her battle rifle burst to life, four three round bursts to the face finished the alien off, it dropped to its knees and Marcus barely had time to roll out the way as it finished its death throes by falling forward face first, the blood was a dark purple/red colour and began dripping from the multiple wounds, pooling up along the floor, in the chaos they hadn't realised that another Brute like creature was throwing around another Marine, it was in ornate looking armour and wielded a large hammer, bored of toying with the human in its hands it threw the Marine against the wall, she screamed in pain as she hit the wall, slumping down, but before she could collapse to the ground the alien had caved her torso in with its hammer, as If a tank had just rolled over her and completely flattened her torso as thinly as possible, the other Marines slowly withdrew, firing their weapons towards the huge lumbering creature, as they got back into the clearing of the main room of the opticians Marcus threw a frag grenade behind him, though he may as well have fired a paintball, as apart from wounding the creature, it did little to stop it, the Beast seemed to almost go berserk with rage, but another Marine had had the idea to throw the dead grunts plasma grenades at the creature, it was extremely effective, the plasma burnt through the armour of the Brutish alien as if it was a plasma pistol through Marines, the beast roared in anger and pain as its right arm was blown off, forcing it to drop its hammer, the fur of the creature caught fire as the heat of the plasma melted and burned away the flesh, it was a gruesome sight, blue flames engulfed the beast as it dropped dead, either of shock, blood loss, or sheer overwhelming agony, maybe a mix of the three, within seconds the engagement was over, the dimly lit reception area now awash in an eerie blue glow as the Brute's body burned.

The remaining Marines just stood, the blue glow all that illuminated them as they gazed at the burning body, even with his mask up Marcus could smell the charred flesh of the dead enemy. He knew he had to keep them all moving, or they'd allow the scene of the battle to overwhelm them, and that would make keeping the advance up even harder than it already was. "Marines, listen up, we keep moving, we have gotta disable the shields that block this street or we can't link up with the ODSTs. Understood?" Faust said, Titch nodded and his words were followed by a chorus of "understood" and "yes sir". "Get a charge on the wall at the end of the corridor, we stick to the 'house-hopping' idea", Marcus looked towards the Marine that had killed the Brute, "Do you have any other Plasma Grenades picked up?", "Sir?" the Marine replied, still coming out of the shock of the scene around them, "Plasma Grenades, do you have them?", "No sir, but...But I can search for some on the bodies of the dead" the Marine managed to stutter out, "good, you and you" Marcus said, pointing towards Titch and a female Marine next to him, "help him find some, we'll use them against the bastards". The two Marines nodded and the three of them set to work, overturning corpses and searching for any explosives, "right, who has a charge for the wall?" Faust asked, "I do sir" a timid looking Marine replied,"alright mate, good, go set it up, don't detonate it till I say so, got it?", Faust asked, the Marine nodded and set off down the corridor, cackles of gunfire could be heard from outside, and as it drew him back to the situation at hand he hoped the other group of Marines were doing okay, because if they weren't, he didn't know how they would get through several more covenant strongpoints to deactivate the shield. "Charge set" a shout came from down darkness, "understood" Marcus called back, "alright, everyone head down, stack up" he ordered, the Marines moved cautiously, a line formed which left the smallest gap besides the gathered soldiers. "Okay, on my mark", Marcus checked his gear, then had a glimpse at the ammo count on his Assault Rifle, twenty-eight rounds, he didn't bother reloading, though he probably should, but he needed to conserve ammo, "three..." Marcus began, "two..." he took a deep breath as his heart began to race again, it took all his strength to hide the tremors, "one. Mark" and on his word the wall ahead blew apart, the Marines piled through the gap as quickly as they could. Silence followed, They were now on a shop floor, the contents scattered or long since looted before the evacuations, the shelves were damaged by plasma burns which had made holes, or bullet holes, inside were a dozen dead Army troopers, some civilians, and a pile of dead Grunts closest to the window by the street, presumably they were swarmed, an effort to save the most 'important' units of the Covenant by throwing the Grunts into the fray. Torchlight from the Marine's weapons lit the way ahead, it was empty, the Covenant had abandoned this building, "should we check for survivors here sir?" a Marine asked, she was stood closest to one of the trooper's bodies, Marcus thought for a second, and whilst he didn't want to waste too much time, he wanted to put their minds at ease, and if there were no survivors, especially civilian, it might push the adrenaline into them that they needed to kill Aliens, which was sick, but he needed the recruits to be willing to fight, and to keep them alive they'd need any edge they could get, and unfortunately, rage was as good as any, "alright, you" Marcus said pointing to another Marine, "place a charge on that wall, you, you and you, check for survivors, you, Twitch, Mikhailov, with me, we'll take up a position by the window and the door, turn your torches off when there, stick to the shadows" the Marines nodded, Marcus walked over to the doorway and flicked off the torch on his rifle, the streets glowed red, and flashes could be seen from across the road, the other team were still alive, and making good progress, "charge set" a voice called out, "copy that" Marcus replied by radio, "No survivors, they're all dead. Alien pricks" a voice called over the comms, "stay focused, stack up, we are getting close to the shield now, eyes peeled in the next building, after that we'll be by the shield, let's go!" the Marines once again stacked along a wall, the whole thing felt frustrating and Marcus was almost tempted to order an all-out charge along the road, but he wasn't that stupid, "alright, go ahead, blow it". The wall came down, and the female Marine who'd asked to find survivors was cut down by a plasma rifle burst, six bolts had hit her and all burnt through her armour, killing her instantly, "shit, stop! Stop!" Marcus called out, but in that time another Marine had tried to go in through the gap, a barrage of green and blue bolts of plasma slammed into the man's armour, burning through it and killing him in seconds.

"Get a grenade in there! Now" he shouted, a blue glow began emanating from the hands of a Marine behind him, who swiftly advanced past Marcus and lobbed the grenade blindly around the corner, through the breach, they waited for the explosion and charged into the hole in the wall, they were greeted to a small grouping of dead grunts, and an Elite sat against a wall, it weakly attempted to lift its Plasma Rifle but Marcus and Mikhailov unloaded into it, killing the Alien before it had the chance to kill anymore, "Titch, grab their tags, then meet up with us, time to go upstairs, follow me" Marcus said over comms, a Marine to his left went back, it must have been Titch, the rest of the Marines, all six of them, moved up behind Marcus, the stairwell of the home was tight, there was little room to manoeuvre and if an enemy struck now they could probably kill every Marine with a burst of Plasma fire. As they approached the upstairs grunts were having their equipment checked by a couple of Elites, who seemed frustrated, Marcus understood nothing they were saying, if they were even saying anything and not just roaring, he gestured to a Marine behind him and ducked down as best he could to try hide himself, another Marine made his way quietly up the tight gap between the soldiers and the walls of the stairs, "do you have any grenades?" he whispered, the Marine nodded, he pulled a frag grenade off his belt, "here you go sir", Marcus nodded, and the Marine ducked down, both to hide himself and to make sure the shrapnel that would fly from the grenade wouldn't hit him. Faust pulled the pin on the grenade, counting to five, which felt far too long, he threw the explosive into the group, there was no time to react as the Grunts Methane tanks went up in flames, vaporising three of the small Alien creatures, and blasting the two Elites backwards into the walls, Marcus moved up and fired his assault rifle into one of the Elites as the Marines behind him followed up, a couple of others kicked in the door of what was likely the bathroom but found nothing, Titch was the last man up, but was relieved as his shoulders relaxed and he lowered his rifle. "Move quickly, these flames are gonna spread and I want that shield down, so let's not get ourselves burned alive, get a breach charge on that wall, that's it, and then we can get it down, and keep moving forwards" Marcus said, Mikhailov walked to the wall, she placed a charge on it, flicking a switch, the gentle bleeping of the device reassuring all the gathered Marines it was functional, the Marines reloaded their weapons and checked their equipment, better to be safe than sorry, "everyone ready?" Marcus asked, there was a collective nod of heads as he looked around, the fires were noticeable, he was hoping the other team were keeping the Covenant busy, he didn't want to have to deal with enemy reinforcements with only six of them left. "Set it off", Mikhailov clicked the detonator, placing it back in her pouch as Marcus turned the corner, he cut down a Grunt with a burst of rifle fire but as the Marine behind him got through the gap he was hit by a stray bolt of Plasma, his leg was hit, he was alive but he wouldn't be able to fight, "shit Mikhailov pull him back through then join us in the attack, we'll come back for him" Marcus barked over the radio headset, from the corner of the eye he saw the man being pulled back, so he continued sidestepping and firing at his targets, a Plasma Turret that was previously being aimed down the road was now being repositioned, he gunned down one of the Grunts, but the second managed to keep going, dragging it behind itself with difficulty, as it did so an Elite moved in to cover it, not out of respect for its comrade but simply to ensure they could get superior firepower against the Marines, Mikhailov came through, her Battle Rifle blaring, the iconic sound of the three round burst weapon echoed the room as she tried desperately to kill the Grunt with the turret, the Elite began to roar and drew its Energy sword, from outside an explosion could be heard, the shield, which had been casting a blue glow throughout the room began to flicker and then dimmed before popping back to life, it was clearly weakened, but it would stop anything in its tracks, the second team had completed its objective, Marcus snapped back to attention, focusing his fire onto the roaring Elite, Mikhailov got lucky and must have hit an important part of the Grunt's Methane tank, it began to spark and soon exploded, the creature flew forwards before slamming into a wall, with nowhere to go the creature span back around as the gas escaped uncontrollably, it soon flew into the Elite, knocking it off balance, allowing Titch and another Marine to break the aliens shield and then cut it down, they opened fire on the Grunt, putting it down out of sheer pity. Marcus wouldn't forget it, it was funny at first, but to hear its screams as it desperately tried to flee, he began to wonder if it had family, if it even wanted to be here fighting, he felt his throat choke up. "Stand clear" a voice shouted, snapping him back to the situation at hand, they all made their way through the breach, Titch was checking over the wounded Marine, the fires had spread, but they'd be able to get out the way they came before it became a serious threat to their safety. A large explosion was heard and Marcus popped his head through the hole in the wall, the shield flickered and finally died. "Alright, Mikhailov, Titch, help him to his feet, we need to get out of here before this place really goes up in flames, you two, with me" Marcus raised his rifle, there was no real need, but it made him feel reassured as they passed through the buildings they had been fighting through just minutes earlier. As they entered the corridor of the opticians, Marcus took note of the scene, the crushed female Marine, whose entire torso had been flattened like a pancake, there was nothing left, the bones must have been entirely powdered, her head and legs could almost be mistaken for a separate body, it was a horrible sight, and as they got into the clear space of the main room the Brutish Alien's body had finally burned out, its hammer lay on the floor alongside its decapitated arm. "Alright, we'll leave out this way" Marcus said as he gestured towards the door of the Opticians. "Team two, report?" Marcus asked over comms, there was silence, he was about to ask again when a crackle of static burst through and a voice could be heard, "Sir, five dead, two wounded, but the objective has been destroyed" a woman said, she sounded exhausted, and Marcus couldn't blame her, he longed for nothing but sleep. "Lieutenant Javid, Corporal Faust here, Road India is clear, I say again we have cleared Road India". There was again silence, but he expected that, the Marine forces further back would be rushing around gathering their equipment before they even thought to respond to his radio message, the minutes ticked by, overhead a Falcon transport whirred, it was strange to see, he thought the Army had cleared out of the city and were fighting in the rural parts of the Planet. "Faust, we're sending a tank to your position, as well as a transport 'hog, hold your positions, Army forces are coming to assist you, get your wounded back here, and position the Scorpion where you need it, but hold that damned position at all costs, understood?", Marcus was confused, but Javid would never answer him anyway, so he merely gave an "understood sir" in response and left it at that. The Marines gathered their dead on the side of the street, and pushed the destroyed Mongoose ATV's up to the shield to form an improvised barricade, the wounded sat against the wall of the building where the Grenadier had taken position with her spotter, it was quiet where they were but gunfire could still be heard echoing throughout Utgard and the odd flash of the giant wraith shells would illuminate the sky, hitting UNSC positions. Half an hour passed before the promised Tank arrived, followed by the transport Warthog, the tank commander popped his head out the hatch, "Roll up to those ATVs and hold there, keep some space for us to move along it, we're using that as our frontline. Shoulda just left the bloody shield up" Marcus laughed, the commander gave a laugh and then set about moving his tank up to the makeshift barricade, "Alright!" Marcus shouted to get the Marines attention, "Load the wounded onto the 'hog quickly, then set up by the barricade!" Marcus ordered, he holstered his assault rifle, the magnetic grip forcing it to stay pinned to his back, he made his way over and helped load the three wounded Marines onto the transport, "alright, get them out of here" he said to the driver, she gave a curt nod, and then set off back down the road towards the main Marine force. "Sir, why are we waiting here?" One of the Marines finally asked, he didn't have an answer and knew that Javid wouldn't give him one, not a straight one anyway, "I don't know Marine, we have orders to wait for a unit of Army troopers to reinforce our positions, but until then we hold the line. I don't know why".

Three hours passed and more and more Falcons and Pelicans filled the air above Utgard, in the distance Marcus could swear he saw drop pods entering the atmosphere, though he couldn't be sure, had the offensive failed? Had something gone wrong? he didn't have a clue, and that unnerved him. Army reinforcements finally arrived, they looked exhausted, clearly, they were moved here straight from their previous deployment, no rest, and no resupply. Their Warthog's were covered in scorch marks and their armour covered in dirt and blood, the fighting in the countryside must have been much worse than he had believed. "Welcome to Road India, the greatest road in all Utgard, we have luxury accommodation, an optician a shop, and a huge fire" Marcus said as the soldiers dismounted, some laughed, most were too tired, they set themselves up in positions and rested, it was pointless to try motivate them at the time, Marcus set about finding himself their CO and finding out what was going on, but as he saw the troopers slump in exhaustion, eating or sleeping and doing their best to recover, he thought it best to wait, and so went to join the last of his Marines at their makeshift barrier, if the Covenant were to come, there wouldn't be much of a defence. A further hour passed, the road ahead was quiet, sometimes a curious Jackal would test the alertness of the UNSC forces ahead of it, but after a round or two slammed into the shield the curious scout would flee back to the safety of cover, slowly but surely Army troopers, who had recovered somewhat from their fatigued state would come reinforce the improvised defences that blocked the road, but once they deployed a barrier or set up a machine gun emplacement somewhere they often dropped hopped around into well covered ruined positions or the few standing buildings around them and returned to sleep, apart from Marcus and the remains of his platoon, the barricade was understrength, the tank crew were sat on the tread covers and laughing and joking, anything to pass the time, but all the spare time led Marcus to wonder what was going on, the sky was full of UNSC transports, Pelicans, Falcons even Herons were flying about overhead, it was unnerving and reassuring all in one, the relief that there must now be hundreds of thousands if not millions of UNSC forces on the planet now, but at the same time, if there were that many soldiers deployed on Harvest, something must be going on, either in Space, which is forcing rapid deployment, or on the ground, which requires the combined arms of the UNSC to come together to deploy such large numbers of boots on the ground. "Corporal Faust" a voice came through on the Marine's radio, Marcus made his way over and picked up the headpiece, "Sir?" he replied, trying to hide the tremor of his voice as he waited anxiously for what his CO might say. "Return to the park, we're leaving Utgard and heading to the country" Lieutenant Javid said, his voice showing no emotion, but Marcus expected no concern from the commanding officer of his Company. "Yes sir, understood". Marcus sighed heavily, "Alright Marines, listen up, we're heading back to the park, we're being redeployed to the country" he shouted to the last of his group, "the country?" one Marine began curiously, "I thought the Army were dealing with resistance in the country", it was obvious that he was scared, and he didn't blame him, he was too, but he had to try remain composed, "So did I, but the orders are in, so we best get walking".

The Marines gathered their equipment, and left for the park that the rest of the division were held up, it felt like a short walk compared to the last time, but it still took half an hour to get back to the rest of the division. As they approached the park, it was an impressive site, foxholes, barricades, tanks and Warthogs with machine guns were dug into defensive positions, a command tent was up, and in the ruins of a building a medical centre was set up with Corpsmen doing their best to tend to the wounded and comfort the dying. "Mount up Marines, we're leaving!" a Captain shouted as he boarded a Pelican, Marcus and his group piled onto the nearest transport as it was taking off, barely making it. The flight lasted an hour and a half, but to Marcus it felt like minutes as he drifted off into sleep, the Marine's had already departed the dropship and Titch, who was furthest from the door had to wake him up to get him out. Marcus placed his rifle onto his back and felt a heaviness overtake him, he was exhausted, and now, he and the Marines were in the middle of nowhere, a temporary firebase had been set up, several markings lay around the base suggested it had been deployed from a ship called the 'Spirit of Fire'. "You ever heard of it?" Titch asked as he caught Marcus staring at the logo painted onto the firebase's wall, "hm?" Marcus began as he tried to form a response from his groggy mind "yeah I heard a bit about it, a colony ship I think, I dunno why it would be all the way here at Harvest in the middle of a warzone, let alone what it is doing deploying a firebase instead of civilian structures, are we that desperate already?" he laughed at his own dark joke, and Titch laughed with him. "What are you two laughing at?" an authoritative woman's voice boomed behind them, instantly the two snapped to attention as if it was a natural response, suddenly she burst into laughter at the two rigid men who hadn't even turned to look at her, "how have you guys been?" she asked, Marcus was confused but as he turned he caught Titch's smirk, "oh you know us Alice, just taking in the sights, we're a couple of regular tourists you know?" he said with a smile as their previous Sergeant removed her helmet and lowered her mask, "in that case I bet you have a lot to tell me, like how in the hell did you two bastards survive storming all those covvie strong points?". The two men looked at each other, Alice could tell by the looks they exchanged that it wouldn't be a happy story. "I saw the wounded that came back from your assault on the enemy, I was relieved neither of you were with them, but I can tell it wasn't good, one of them said you even encountered an enemy and were forced to burn them alive?".

Marcus looked at her, then to the floor, "Yeah, one of the Marines, he erm... he had picked up a covvie plasma grenade, it blew off the bastard's arm, and its fur caught fire, but even then it still had the strength to thrash people around, were it not for the shock, pain and blood loss, it would have taken a lot of ammo to kill it, it killed one of the Marines with a hammer, crushed her body, she was flattened, her head, looked normal, her legs and arms, looked normal, but it was if someone had taken a tank, and ran over her chest, then placed back with her limbs, it was..." "You don't have to finish, I understand" Alice said as Marcus' voice began to fall off into a tremor. He felt angry, not afraid, he just wanted to kill as many of the Aliens as possible, the war had to end, he wanted it to be their planets, and their people who suffered, not Humanity. The three of them stood in silence for a few awkward seconds that felt like eternity, but Alice chimed in again, "by the way, I was on Javid's dropship, he and the other officers, were talking about what was going on, and why the offensive at Utgard has been put on hold, I couldn't here all of it, but apparently there is a huge covenant landing zone about eight klicks south of here, the reason it has taken us so long to realise is because of something to do with the Covvies sacrificing ships to make us think they were coming at us piecemeal, we had no reason to explore Harvest's low orbit I guess, but somewhere up there are a dozen ships, that have Aliens deployed to them, prepared for combat, and then deployed at the landing zone, from there, I guess it is to whatever theatre of war the Alien pricks feel like starting with us, including, Utgard, which is why it has been seesawing between us and them almost every month" she finished, "and you said you couldn't here everything? That sounds like a lot to me" Titch joked, Marcus sighed and rubbed his brow, the grumbling of tank treads was heard as six Scorpions were heading off wherever they were needed. "Did you hear of anything like troop composition, is there cover between us and them, because if not, a fucking lot of us are going to die" Marcus said angrily, this wasn't Javid's fault for once, but he knew that his CO would have no problem sending tens of thousands of Marines to their deaths in a full frontal charge across open ground if it was left to his own decision. "Well, ever the happy bunny aren't you?" Titch replied sarcastically. "There's a few hilly between us and them, it must be serious, because rumour around, which I overheard getting of the Pelican – pays to listen lads" Alice laughed and then continued "is that even ONI is here, they have elite recon units scouting the LZ, if it makes you feel any better though, we do have dozens of Cobra artillery vehicles driving into position behind the hills, when the time comes, we're going to be attacking guts rather than Aliens" she finished confidently, Marcus laughed, he pulled down his mask and scratched at his beard, 'the worst part of war' he thought to himself sarcastically, 'itchy beards'. The Marines were bunked wherever they could be placed, as Marcus, Titch, Alice and the rest of their division had arrived way after the majority of UNSC forces they were in hastily erected tents, forced to rely on burning wood to stay warm, but it was better than no shelter at all, especially as the snows of the plasma bombardment induced winter had begun to fall again. As no calls had come for the Units to form up, most of the staging ground fell silent as the Marines, ODST's and Army units slept, the big push could come anytime, and they all wanted to be as alert as possible when that time came.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter 4**_

"Listen up Marines!" a grim-faced General shouted as he walked up onto a large stage, his left ear was missing and Marcus was pretty sure one of his eyes was fake, but it didn't matter, if this man was still in the Marine Corps, it made him one of the toughest sons of bitches Humanity had to offer, and so his words were worth listening to. "At 01:32 hours this morning, Harvest time, Office of Naval Intelligence Reconnaissance units designated India 5-5 and Romeo 2-3 laid eyes upon a weakspot within the Covenant LZ. A weak-spot I intend for us to fully exploit!" the Man had anger and hope in his voice and it was inspiring to the Marines for reasons Marcus couldn't understand. The General activated a button from a clicker in his hand and images of from the Helmet Camera of the ONI units were projected from small holographic unit. "This here, is the North-Western most point of the Covenant's position, in every other place within their perimeter, they have turrets in positions that provide interlocking fields of fire, not to mention a diamond shaped formation of stationary Plasma Shell turrets, which we assume to be a type of Artillery device, we have no idea of their range so be careful if they catch you out. Anyway, this one section of the Alien bastards defence, is significantly less defended, the Hills provide them perfect cover, alongside their turrets and artillery, but that one corner, is too steep to place any form of artillery to cover themselves, there appear to be five extra turrets in position, but with the coordinates provided by our friends at ONI, we should be able to knock them out with our Cobra's before Army forces arrive to swarm the breach. Once the Army are through the breach and have secured a foothold, Marine forces will arrive in Warthogs, and harass the enemy perimeter defences, allowing ODSTs to advance and assist the Army in making their way towards the Covenant deployment zone, after that they will plant a HAVOK tactical nuclear weapon, it will detonate within twenty minutes, if you are NOT out by the end of the countdown, then I hope you are happy becoming a shadow on the ground forever" the General finished his speech and shouted dismissed to the large gathering of Marines, as they left the sounds of the Cobra railguns begin to rumble throughout the hills, the attack must have been beginning soon, and Marcus found himself more frightened then he had ever been before.

Within the hour, Marcus had quickly resupplied himself, he grabbed a variant of the Assault Rifle that held a sixty-round magazine, which he felt would be needed with such a large number of Alien forces the Marines would be facing, he also scrounged more Magnum magazines, though he thought to himself that were it to resort to the use of his pistol, he'd be in such a poor situation he wouldn't live through it anyway, so his Assault Rifle was his weapon of choice to ensure his own personal survival, after that, he tried his best not to think about the upcoming assault that would take place, he sat with Titch and Alice, and some other Marines, and they just tried to joke around and talk about anything that wasn't involving the future Operation. One of the Marines began to talk about her time in bootcamp, and suddenly the small group were engrossed in the tale. "So, we walked right? Well, that's what you'd think we would do, but oh no, no, no" she laughed, "Kingsley, thought he would just improvise a boat, I mean keep in mind now, we're up shit creek without a paddle, in fact we were pretty much drowning in shit creek, and Blue and Gold Teams were way probably way ahead of us, so Kingsley found an old car, I mean this thing mustn't have run in about, ooooh, thirty odd years, and it had been shot up in CTF exercises, but he decided he could get it working" at this point she was laughing way to heavily to carry on, and the Marcus and the rest of the group were desperate to know what happened next, 'it couldn't have been that funny' he thought to himself as he waited for the Marine to stop laughing and continue the story. "So instead of trying to get the car itself working! He decides we can all make a boat out of the engine, so whilst me and the rest of Green Team are scrounging wood and vines from the woodland, he sets about pulling the engine from the car, after about another twenty, thirty, fuck knows how many minutes he finally had it removed and carried it over to us where we'd make a raft to get down the Lake, and if any of you remember Reach, it has huge fucking lakes, and he drops the engine on to the make shift boat we made, and in his excitement he tries to get the engine started with the power unit in his helmet, which royally backfires, not only! Does he shock the shit out of himself to the point he is thrown a good fifty or sixty feet back, but he manages to jumpstart the engine, which then sends our raft right into the middle of the lake, before it fell off, the raft flew up into the air and broke apart. We'd wasted a good fucking hour getting everything ready, and if you thought that was the funny part, it turned, Engel, had just misread the map, and we about twenty minutes away from the RV point" she finished, her face red as she gagged for air at the memory, Marcus and the rest of the group couldn't help but laugh, and the banter towards her kept them occupied as the time to the Operation slowly got closer, until, a large announcement came. "OPERATION FALLOUT COMMENCES IN FIVE MINUTES! ALL UNSC FORCES ARE REQUIRED TO REPORT TO THEIR DESIGNATED AREA!", the message repeated two more times and then an organised mass of bodies began running off in different directions, from above it must have looked like an Ant Hill. "Mount up! Now!" a Seargent shouted to the squad of Army troopers off to Marcus' left, they were going to be involved in the main infiltration of the Covenant LZ, their warthogs were just transport variants, they had no weapons, and it must have been a horrifying feeling to know you'd be involved in a charge and had nothing but your small arms to hit with. Marcus, however, had to force himself to ignore his empathetic thoughts as he hopped up onto the Machine Gun turret of his own 'hog, driven by a Private named Karlson, as his Lieutenant, Javid, sat himself into the Passenger's seat, if he didn't have his mask up and his helmet on, Marcus could swear he'd be able to see fear in the bastards eyes, and though he wished no one dead, he was glad his Lieutenant was frightened, a feeling many of the Marines he had needlessly sent to their deaths had felt at their final moments. Marcus let out a slight triumphant laugh and watched his breath steam up and vanish into the air. Karlson started the Warthog's engine and the vehicle grumbled to life, he checked over the Machine Gun, and prepared himself for the battle to come. As hundreds of transport 'hogs drove off over the hills, the huge Cobra artillery pieces began to slow down their fire rate. It didn't take long for the small arms fire to begin cackling off in the distance, followed by the response of the 'pews' and howling of the Covenant heavy weaponry, Wraiths, 'Shade' turrets and maybe even weapons the UNSC haven't even witnessed yet.

"Alright Marines, we're going in" a voice called over their comms, and with that, Karlson set the warthog on its way. His heart racing, Marcus scanned the skies, his 50. Caliber turret would shatter the lightly armoured Covenant fighter, but their sheer numbers and their twin Plasma turrets, plus a plasma cannon, meant they'd do a lot of damage to him and his comrades if he let them get through. Overhead dozens of Hornets whizzed past, missiles flying from their pods and turrets firing at anything ahead of them that didn't look human, the sight was a welcome one, but the grandness of the sight was soon wiped away as the Warthog crested the hill, catching some slight air due to their speed, the carnage lay ahead of them, the carcasses of UNSC equipment surrounded by their dead occupants, those who weren't dead were desperately firing at the Alien threat, but to little effect, the Army troopers were being slaughtered, and as the Marines got closer to the battlefield they were forced to slow down to avoid the wounded or the wrecks of Warthogs, Scorpion Tanks and even Mongoose ATVs. As their assault stalled the Covenant Wraiths began their relentless bombardment, all of a sudden three tonne Warthogs were flipped through the air like a juggler's ball and Scorpions had their turrets melted away by huge balls of Plasma, Men and Women alike were left immolated by the enemy small arms, and as the Marines dismounted to join the Army in a more conventional attack, the Covenant sent forth their air power, Banshee's howled through the air, diving onto the UNSC forces like an Owl whose spotted a mouse. Hundreds lay dead or wounded within a matter of minutes, the offensive forces now turned to the defence, and the few vehicles the Human forces had left began to cover the troops on the ground from the aerial attacks of the enemy, but this left them open to the enemy heavy vehicles and Wraiths continued to bombard them unopposed, the Hornets too were engaging the Banshees. "Get out the 'Hog! Now!" Javid shouted over the chaos of the ensuing battle, Marcus wasted no time in leaping from the gun and as he did, he felt an intense heat against his back as the vehicle went up in flames and a green plume of Plasma slammed forward into the ground before darkening as it cooled rapidly. "Shit, where's Karlson?" Marcus cried as he tried to compose himself, his commanding officer still laying on the ground, squirming to get away, 'ah fuck him' he thought to himself as he took his Assault Rifle from his back, flicking off the safety he ran to the other side of the burning wreckage of his Warthog, Karlson was alive, but his arm was badly burnt, and he was missing his left leg from the knee down, it lay on the floor a metre from where he lay, "Is it bad?" he asked Marcus when he saw him standing over him, Marcus fired off a few rounds at a Grunt that had popped out from cover, but missed, the creature panicked and fled and so Marcus turned his attention to his fellow Marine.

"What? You mean you can't feel that?" he replied curiously, "can't feel what, what's happened?" the wounded Marine's voice trembling now as panic began to sneak in, "Bollocks, alright, well, your arms badly burned, and your left leg is gone below the knee, in fact, it's behind you" Marcus replied, he couldn't help but pity Karlson, he was one of the replacements from the Epoch, he'd survived the assault on Utgard, and now, here, in a field somewhere on Harvest, he suffered losses at the hands of an Alien threat they knew little about. "Corpsman!" Marcus shouted, "We need a Corpsman over here!" he screamed towards a trooper with a red cross on his helmet, and the man ran over as fast as he could, bolts of Plasma screeching past him, "Help me get him behind cover" the man shouted over the sounds of the battlefield. Marcus placed his rifle on his back and drew his pistol, grabbing Karlson by the back of his armour, he dragged him a good four or five meters behind a burnt-out tank, firing off rounds in a desperate attempt to supress any hostile fire. The man was an Army medic, he looked over Karlson and asked him some basic questions, but as Marcus reloaded his pistol, placing it back in his holster and then re-equipping his Assault Rifle, the Medic shouted, "I can't do anything for him here, the good news is, he's numb to any pain, which means the Plasma has burned away his nerves in the affected area" then he laughed grimly, "the bad news" he continued "is that he is numb to any pain, and if there are any internal problems, he and I are not going to know about it, I'll stay here with him, and try find a way to get him out of here, but I can't promise anything". Marcus paused for a minute, unsure of what to say. As he managed to unfreeze himself, he tapped the Medic on the shoulder, and went over to his wounded companion, "Alright mate, I'm gonna have to leave you with this medic, you're going to be fine, okay?" Marcus said, leaning down close to the wounded man's ear so he could hear over the fighting, Karlson merely nodded. He readied himself to move, poking his face out from behind the Scorpion wreck to look ahead, a group Marines and Army units were ahead of him, they'd managed to open up a small gap in the left flank of the Covenant fortifications, and so he returned to his cover, took a few deep breaths, and then began a sprint over to the group, above him the fighting was almost over, the UNSC Air Force and Marine units' superior training had won them the battle for Aerial Supremacy as Banshee's fell from the sky by the dozens, their metal carcasses joining the graveyard of UNSC vehicles, their pilots joining the Human dead on the ground. "Welcome to the 'Hole' Marine" one of the troopers shouted as Marcus leapt to the ground to avoid a Plasma grenade, which, to his dismay, was not as close as he thought, and made him look a lot more foolish than practical. "The 'hole'? It's been what, a few minutes? And you gave it a nickname like we have been here for days?" Marcus shouted back, "We're just thinking ahead" a nearby Marine responded, Marcus laughed a little at their dark humour and he regained his composure. "We sent in a small squad a couple of minutes ago, in two minutes we expect them to contact us, if not, we're fucked, because I don't see any way for us to break through unless more troops head our way, and their either busy dealing with the wounded, or ignoring our comms" the Army trooper, a Seargent First Class, shouted, "we're already fucked if we stay here Sir, we have to either fall back or move forward, but we can't stay here. If in two minutes we don't here from your squad, we need to make our decision!" Marcus replied, he fired towards a group of grunts who in turn were pinning down a group of Marines and a wounded pilot, the two grunts dropped dead and the rest scattered, he cut down another grunt and sent a fourth flying through the air as his bullets burst the strange gas tanks attached to their armour. A Brute came forward, two Plasma rifles in its hands it began to fire at anything and everything, truly living up to its name, a Pilot who somehow survived the crash landing popped out of their cockpit, the Hornet mangled and sparking, fire sending plumes of smoke into the darkness of the sky, but as they attempted to leave the wreckage, the Brute dropped one its weapons, and with a speed that still catches Marcus by surprise despite past close encounters, it grabbed the Pilot by the throat, and slammed the unfortunate victim by the throat, the Pilot desperately swung at the Brutes arms with one arm, and flailed around for their pistol with the other, but for all that effort, the Pilot was faced with little positive results, and the brutes broke its victims neck with just one hand, before firing into the corpse with its Plasma Rifle for good measure, the Pilots corpse thrown away, discarded as if a piece of rubbish. The Beast then charged forward, but before it could grab another victim, it stopped, spotting Marcus and the group of UNSC forces, it turned to fire at them and though a few bursts of Plasma made their way towards them, they missed their mark, and the Brute had little time to react as a Rocket slammed into it, the creature went up in pieces, limbs and organs that weren't torn away collapsed into a pool of its blood, the gruesome site forever burned into his mind, Marcus forced himself back to the immediate situation.

"There's been nothing from the recon squad" the Army Seargent said, "what do we do then?" a Marine private asked, there wasn't fear in her voice, but definite concern, "I can't force you to join me, but I say we should go in, our job is to destroy the enemy Landing Zone, we do that, we stem the tide, maybe even end the Siege of Harvest, there's not many of us, and fuck if I know how we destroy it, we have no nukes, and no flares to signal support, but we can improvise, whose with me?" the Seargent asked, the group looked around to each other, no one backed out, "alright, let's move forward then" the trooper shouted to the group. By now, behind the advancing UNSC forces, the battlefield had entered a new stage of chaos, Pelicans attempted to navigate themselves as close as they could to evacuate wounded troops and deploy reinforcements, without being hit by the Covenant artillery, by also, avoiding the huge vehicle graveyard that had formed from the previous wave, the entire plan had vanished in the blink of an eye, Army medics and Marine corpsmen roamed the plain, dodging the enemy fire to find those who could still be saved, any of those still capable, returned fire, or attempted to push forward and breakthrough, still ignorant of the hole that he and his fellow soldiers were heading to exploit despite multiple hails to make their way towards the exploitable position. As they broke through the breach, they saw the bodies of the previous team, weapons ready, the group advanced cautiously, led by the Army Sergeant, the highest ranked member of the force, every few seconds a Grunt would appear, but they would cut it down almost as soon as they appeared, a more brutal whack-a-mole. "Where do we go from here?" a voice asked over their comms, "forward I guess" someone else replied, "forwards as good a way as any I suppose" a third voice chimed in, "keep the comms clear, we move forward, keep your eyes open and call out anything that looks important" the Sergeant finally ordered, the channel went silent and the group kept moving forward, cutting down never ending horde of Grunts, Marcus was reloading when a pair of the little Aliens charged forward, Plasma grenades in hand, they ignited them as soon as they spotted him, he barely managed to pull his pistol out as he dropped the empty Rifle magazine from his hand, bringing his secondary up he squeezed the trigger twice, the closest grunt dropped to the ground dead, the second grunt stumbled as a third round slammed into its chest, but it kept coming, but it didn't matter, that stumble had cost it valuable time, and four plasma grenades ignited, vaporising the vast majority of the two Grunts, all that remained was some burnt flesh and scorched equipment.

"good spot" someone said over the comms, Marcus clicked it twice in acknowledgement, and placed his pistol back into the holster, grabbing a full magazine from his front chest pouch he slammed it into his Assault rifle and locked it in place, he continued to scan the area as the group advanced, it fell quiet, all that could be heard now was the sounds of the continuing skirmishes behind them, the whooshing of the Plasma Shells from the Wraiths, and occasional Hornet strafing run by one of the UNSCs pilots, risking the AA fire to kill as many covenant forces as possible. The group came to a halt, a large open area ahead, with multiple strange pads and columns around the perimeter, "well" the Sergeant began over the comm, "that definitely looks important, split up, two groups, we take out two of those columns, and regroup here, we have some okay cover, if nothing happens when those columns go down we move on, if something does happen, well, we figure that out if it happens" and with that, the single group became two, seventeen became a group of eight and nine, and they scattered, sprinting towards the strange alien columns, "alright, cover me" an Army engineer said as he pulled off a pack and began fiddling with some C-12 explosives, 'heavy stuff' Marcus thought to himself as he began to scan the surroundings, he and the other six surrounding the Engineer in a semi-circular formation, crouched to lower their mass, making them harder to hit. 'This better be worth the effort' he continued to think, 'otherwise this is going to be one hell of a costly mistake, what were we thinking going head on?' his thoughts were disrupted, "Contact!" a Marine shouted, "to the Right! By the damaged Wraith!" a squad of Grunts led by an Elite, opened fire on the group, one of the Marines of the small formation was hit in the leg and the arm, but continued to fire from prone positions, the rest of them made quick work of the smaller cannon fodder, before turning their efforts on the Elite, Marcus ejected the empty magazine of his Assault Rifle, once again reloading, he was running short of ammunition now, he had four Magazines left for his Rifle and three for his pistol plus the one already loaded, but his pistol wouldn't count for much against the bigger Aliens like an Elite or a Brute or the strange Worm conglomeration with their huge Plasma Beam weapons, and that concerned him if this operation amounted to nothing he might not have a way of getting out again. "Charges placed" the engineer shouted over their small arms fire, "Grab him, we're leaving!" one of the troopers shouted in response, Marcus placed his rifle on his back and grabbed the wounded Marine, the remainder of the squad fired on the Elite, its shield flickering with each shot that made impact, it wouldn't hold forever, but for whilst it was active, it allowed it to continue firing on the UNSC forces, slowing down their withdrawal. "Crap, I'm out" the wounded Marine shouted to Marcus, 'I better not regret this' he thought to himself, he began to drag the man back with one hand as he reached for the pouch on his chest, grabbing two of his four magazines he passed them to the wounded man, "take these, make them count!" Marcus shouted, eventually, after a lot of fire, the Elite's shield broke, and it roared in defiance, as dozens of rounds flew past it, those that hit sending blue blood flying from the wounds, the creature merely walked off, as if the wounds meant nothing to it, but it allowed the squad to get back to their RV point.

"Took your sweet time" the Sergeant joked, "alright, everything ready?" the engineer who'd travelled with Marcus and their group nodded to his NCO, and the Sergeant gave a hearty smile, there were still seventeen of them, even if one was wounded, and his plan was a success so far, "Good... Good. Okay, get some Bio-Foam inside those wounds, and link up the explosives to the detonators". A Corpsman got to work on spraying in the Biofoam and whilst the wounded Marine groaned in agony, Marcus knew from experience he would feel a lot better with the foam than without it, and it means he'll be able to re-join the fight until they can get him proper medical attention. "All set Sir" the Engineer finally spoke up, "ready for your order". At that moment a Hornet finished it's fly over and explosions rocked the Eastern side of the covenant camp, "Alright, let's see if these things are important, blow it, now" the Sergeant shouted, the Engineer pressed down on the detonator, for a split second there was nothing, and then, two large explosions forced the towers to collapse under their own weight. Minutes ticked by, "there's fuck -" the Marine was suddenly shocked into silence, Marcus looked forward, and in front of him, whatever had happened, they had uncloaked a huge Covenant depot, within, hundreds, if not, thousands of Covenant vehicles lay dormant, ready for deployment once their crews were manning them, and above them, five ships, smaller than any of the Covenant warships he had seen before, but still just about larger than a UNSC Paris Class Frigate, still with the bulbous shape, but rounder, than all other Covenant ships, almost like a huge Banshee, but without the wings, they immediately began to fire upon the surrounding area now they had been exposed, three of the ships began to break for orbit, whilst two continued to hold in atmosphere to maintain their fire. "Any UNSC air assets in the region, this is Sergeant First Class Nichols, we require immediate air strikes on this position, I don't have the map grid but trust me you can't miss it, thousands of enemy vehicles, and two warships are ahead of us, we need to take them out, do you copy?" the seconds felt like hours as they awaited a response, from above, a squadron of Banshees deployed from one of the Covenant ships, from the hangar a strange object fell from it, the huge object slammed into the ground about six hundred meters to their right, as it stood, the four legged creation had a strange dome like device pop up from its front, which soon began to glow green, "no one here engages that, it's not aiming at us, don't give us away" the Seargent said as a huge beam of Plasma slammed into the UNSC forces still on the plain, a Pelican that was attempting to depart was caught by the Plasma and immediately dropped back down to the ground with a large explosion, a row of the few remaining Scorpions was entirely destroyed by just one burst of the weapon, the remainder scattered, attempting to return fire and destroy the behemoth of a war machine that the covenant had just unleashed, but any shells that managed to slam into it, seemed to do little to no damage. "Don't need to tell me twice" one of the Marines replied, "But Sarge, what about the guys out there?" one of the troopers asked, "what about them, we need to take out this LZ or they might deploy more of these things all over the planet, so let's stay hidden and get it done" the Sergeant replied starkly, "Yes Sir" was his reply. "We need air support here right now!" the Sergeant shouted down his comms, finally a response came, "We're aware of the weapons platform Sergeant, but we can't spare the firepower right now, all our Hornets are either badly damaged, or refuelling at the FOB" a voice replied over the comm, "you don't understand, we uncovered the Landing Zone, there's literally thousands of vehicles and two warships ahead of us, we need to take them down" the Sergeant responded, anger in his voice as the giant Behemoth of a vehicle began to prime for firing again, the Green light glowing eerily in the darkness as ten or eleven more shells slammed into it to no avail, the beam again fired forward, slowly moving to the left this time, destroying several Pelicans and most likely killing hundreds of wounded. "Understood, stand by" the woman replied, "Stand by? The fuck are we meant to be standing by for, they should see this threat and scramble everything, this whole Op was to destroy this landing ground and she is telling us to stand by?" the wounded Marine said, "Hoorah" Marcus replied. "Evacuate now Sergeant, in five mikes a hundred Archer Missiles will be dropped on your position".

"Well shit" the Sergeant said, "you heard the Lady, time to go!" the group turned to head for the way they entered, and again faced the usual grunt resistance, allowing them to make it to the breach in the covenant lines in quick time, but now they had to try get away from the blast zone of the Archer missiles, and avoid being burned alive by Plasma from the huge war machine. "In two minutes, those missiles are going to rain down on the LZ, we wait sixty seconds, then run into the no man's land" Sergeant Nichols said, the group had nothing to say, their minds probably racing as fast as their hearts now. "Thirty seconds" the Sergeant said, time passed too slowly for Marcus' liking, "Fifteen seconds" the countdown continued, "five... four... three" the Countdown was almost over 'shit, shit, shit' Marcus kept thinking to himself, it was all he could think of, "two, one, go! Go! Go!" Sergeant Nichols shouted, the seventeen of them broke their positions, sprinting away as Covenant plasma pistols and plasma rifles fired on them, four of the group dropped dead within seconds, the remainder of them made it to cover at the wrecks of nearby Warthogs, "They made it so far, and they died running, what a fucking waste" Sergeant Nichols said to himself, "At least it is over for them" Marcus said, knowing the Sergeant didn't need a reply, but he couldn't help himself, the Sergeant just gave a slight humph in acknowledgement, a few seconds later and the screeching of missiles breaking into atmosphere followed by huge explosions that caused a bang so loud you'd have thought the world was about to split in half. Flames engulfed the covenant landing zone and when the smoke finally cleared, the Warships lay smashed upon the ground and the Landing zone thoroughly decimated, there was no sign of the giant weapons platform, presumably the impact of several missiles had completely torn it to pieces. "We're alive then?" the wounded Marine asked sarcastically, "Seems that way" one of the Army troopers replied, giving a laugh to her own answer, Marcus couldn't help but laugh along. "Good job guys, if I could, I'd put you all in for a medal, you deserve it, now let's go help the wounded and get out of here" Sergeant Nichols said. The group got up and made their way to the few remaining UNSC forces in the area, Pelicans that weren't destroyed by the huge beams of Plasma were now filling to the brim with wounded Marines and Army troopers, Warthogs too that had survived were now being stacked with wounded, even Gun variants were being filled with wounded as engineers removed the turrets to allow for more space to be made for them.

Alongside the wounded, dead were being brought to the positions, stacked high, tens of thousands of UNSC forces must have died in this offensive, and if some of the wounded are mortally wounded, thousands more may still die as a result of it. A pair of Marines carried the body of Lieutenant Javid, the officer finally met his fate. 'Strangely, I don't think he died a hero' Marcus thought to himself. "I saw him in a ditch, alive" a wounded Marine said as she made her way to a Warthog, "he was shell shocked, or if not, just a fucking coward. Bastard got my friends killed in Utgard" she finished as a Corpsman came to help her to the 'hog. Marcus walked over to help an Army trooper lift up a dead trooper, they carried his body over to the growing pile and placed him as respectfully as they could amongst the rest of the dead. For over eight hours the UNSC forces in the area spent their time gathering the dead, evacuating the wounded and scavenging weapons and ammo in case the Covenant came back in the meantime, however, not only did they gather up their remaining assets, they scavenged amongst the ruins of the Covenant Landing Zone, and what horrified the remaining Humans, was that the huge weapons platform, contained the same worms that made up the alien creatures they'd encountered personally or studied from Marcus' helmet cam footage, meaning they could make significantly more powerful units. After another day, the bodies of the dead and the wounded were finally evacuated, and so the remaining capable forces were withdrawn too. At the FOB it was clear to see that they had lost significantly more than Marcus could have imagined, hundreds were here, as opposed to the tens of thousands that were here before.


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5_

"Marcus Faust?" A voice called him, he sat up from his camp bed and looked towards the tent flap, "that's me, can I help you?" he answered, voice groggy as he attempted to focus himself after his sleep, "You don't recognise my voice? Cheeky bastard" the voice replied, footsteps coming closer as a woman slumped herself down on the camp bed opposite his, "Alice?" Marcus said, "Holy shit, you're alive?" He said, rubbing his eyes to try focus himself quicker, looking over, she smiled, but there was something sad in her appearance, "I have some bad news Marcus" she began, "Titch... He ah" she began to stumble her words, "he was hit pretty bad, our 'hog was slammed by a banshee that was shot down, we flipped, his leg was broken, as I dragged him back to cover, but he got hit by rounds from a Grunt Plasma pistol" She stopped, she saw Marcus was beginning to laugh, "I don't get it?" she said in response to his strange act, "Well, Titch, killed by a Titch, I'm appreciating the irony, not the way he'd want to go, he probably dreamt of being butchered by an Elite, but he got shot by the cannon fodder... Ironic in a way" he replied, continuing to laugh, Alice found herself joining in, "I suppose it is a bit" she said through the laughter. "Two more things Faust" Alice said when their laughter stopped. "Okay, shoot" Marcus replied. "I got a promotion, quite the promotion in fact. We're short of officers, and we're short of experienced troops, so I made it to First Lieutenant, anyway, that meant we had to restructure some things, and I was short a Sergeant. So, Sergeant Faust, get your gear, we're deploying to the North, Alpha Base is under siege again, and we're going to break it, Intel says it's the last major Covenant force on the planet, so let's go smash the fuckers, and end the war once and for all, then maybe we can be home by Christmas eh?" she said. Marcus was caught off guard, and after a short pause, nodded to Alice, who left the tent. Gathering his equipment, he left the tent, and boarded a nearby Pelican with his new platoon.

'One final effort' Marcus thought to himself as the dropship began to take off, as the door began to close he glared out towards the carnage of the Covenant Landing Zone, hopeful that this was the beginning of the end, 'One final effort, is all that remains'.


End file.
